Defender of the Imperium Omnibus, page 74
‘Heretical infiltration,’ I confirmed.
Nelys stuck up a hand. ‘I thought we were supposed to be studying interrogation and intelligence retrieval this morning,’ he said, sounding vaguely disappointed.
‘We were, and we will,’ I reassured him. ‘But this topic is related, and in my experience there are few more pressing pieces of intelligence than the existence of a heretic cell attempting to subvert our forces from within.’ As I’d expected, the casual reference to my colourful history hooked them at once, and even Nelys perked up, looking even more attentive than usual. Briel seemed to be with us as well, which was something of a relief. I nodded sombrely, and glanced around again, this time for dramatic effect rather than the fear of unseen listeners. ‘I need hardly tell you that whatever you hear in these tutorials should be kept to yourselves. Some of my more academically-minded colleagues might not approve of me modifying the syllabus.’
That was an understatement if ever I’d uttered one. Our principal, Cuthbert Cathcart, a minor ecclesiarch who’d spent his entire life hindering the education of the youth of the Imperium in one capacity or another, thanks to a mind so narrow I was amazed he could balance a hat on it, would probably have an embolism on the spot if he ever found out. Fortunately, once his unfortunate charges passed into the hands of whatever service branch they’d been directed to, Visiter, Rorkins and I (and a few of the others, I suppose) were able to straighten out most of them reasonably satisfactorily.21
I glanced at the cadet appearing to pay the least amount of attention to me, and most to the Sororitas novices who had begun running through some unarmed combat drills on the parade ground below. ‘Cadet Maklin. What do you know of the Ruinous Powers?’
I swear the sudden silence was so profound, as ten pairs of eyes stared at me in horrified astonishment, that I found myself wondering if they’d stopped breathing.
Maklin’s mouth worked like a freshly landed fish for a moment. ‘They’re really, really bad?’ he hazarded at length.
‘Correct,’ I told him. ‘But it’s their human acolytes you have to look out for.’ I hesitated for a moment, then decided not to burden them with any more knowledge about the Powers themselves. Emperor knows, it’s hardly the most comfortable thing to be scratching around in your head, and it would hardly help matters to give them all nightmares. ‘They form cults, and try to attract the attention of one of the Powers by furthering whatever they imagine its ends to be. The lucky ones generally just muck about enacting rituals they don’t understand, and start worming their way into positions of influence, where they can disrupt the proper functioning of the Imperium.’
‘What about the unlucky ones?’ Kayla asked.
‘They succeed,’ I told her seriously. ‘Their patron power really does take an interest. Bad news for them, and far worse for everyone else.’
‘But they can be beaten, can’t they?’ Stebbins asked, sounding a little uncertain. ‘You’ve fought them, and won.’
‘A few times,’ I said, deciding to gloss over my encounters with daemons and wyrds. I’d got out in one piece every time, it was true, but a lot of other folk hadn’t, and I’d probably have gone the same way if it wasn’t for Jurgen’s peculiar talent for disrupting any warp-spawned powers in the vicinity. ‘But I’ve always had help, and it was never easy. They can place their people anywhere, even inside the Imperial Guard. I don’t have to tell you how serious that can be.’
‘The Guard?’ Donal, of course. ‘Surely that can’t happen very often.’
‘Hardly ever,’ I said. ‘But I’ve seen entire regiments turn to Chaos before now, fighting for their new masters with just as much tenacity and devotion as they used to do for the Emperor.’ Donal still looked sceptical, but from the expressions of horror and disgust on most of the other faces I could see that they were digesting this new and unwelcome idea.
‘What about their commissars?’ Nelys asked indignantly. ‘Why didn’t they stop them?’
‘They seemed to be a bit too busy being dead,’ I told him. ‘One of the more dubious benefits of our calling is being top of the target list in a mutiny.’ I smiled, bleakly. ‘Which is a very good reason for making sure no one foments one in a regiment you’re attached to.’
Most of them nodded, taking the answer at face value, although I was far from sure it had been the right one in every case. I’d known at least one commissar defect to the Great Enemy, and was morbidly certain that there must have been others.
‘So how can we tell if there are Chaos cultists among the soldiers we’ve been assigned to?’ Kayla asked, coming to the point before any of the others as usual.
‘There are a number of signs,’ I said, ‘which might indicate cultist infiltration. In particular, look out for any groups forming around veteran warriors which claim to be some kind of battlefield brotherhood, especially if they start showing signs of wanting to get into close combat instead of using their guns…’
By the time lunch rolled around, and almost away again, I’d run my charges through the most obvious scenarios I could think of, and felt it prudent to add a caveat. ‘There are no hard and fast rules where this is concerned,’ I cautioned them. ‘You’ll just have to rely on your instincts.’
‘I don’t think I’ve got any,’ Nelys said seriously, allowing everyone to break the tension with a laugh, which left him looking faintly bewildered.
‘You followed your instincts on the asteroid,’ Kayla reminded him. ‘That seemed to work out all right.’
‘Yes, I suppose it did,’ Nelys conceded, his expression so serious that even I couldn’t quite suppress a smile.
Donal frowned, thoughtfully. ‘It’s all very well telling us what to look out for in a compromised Guard regiment,’ he said. ‘But surely they’re one of the least likely institutions to be infiltrated.’
‘Quite right,’ I conceded. ‘Normally you’ll find Chaos cults active among the civilian population. Where they can, they’ll try and subvert PDF units and the local arbites,22 too. For obvious reasons.’
‘Well, I suppose they’ll be someone else’s problem in any case,’ Donal said, shrugging. ‘We won’t be mixing too much with civilians.’
‘Apart from R&R,’ Frister said, watching a couple of kitchen maids not much older than he was undulating past below us, with a faintly wistful expression on his face. For a moment I considered counselling caution there too, mindful of the bordello I’d stumbled across on Keffia, which had turned out to be staffed with genestealer hybrids, then decided against it. I’d probably give the poor lad a complex or something. Kinder to let him dream; after all, it was the closest he was ever likely to get.
‘What do you make of it, Cain?’ Rorkins asked, narrowing his slate-grey eyes over the fan of cards in his hand, as he tried to work out whether I was really holding the pair of Inquisitors, which would give me the pot.
Too seasoned a tarot player to let my expression betray me, I simply shrugged, and lobbed another couple of coins onto the heap in the middle of the table. ‘Frakked if I know,’ I admitted, honestly enough. ‘I’m sure the rumours are exaggerated, but they don’t seem to be going away.’
I reached for the glass of the well-matured amasec the colonel kept for his more favoured guests, which I’d left within easy reach, and sipped at it. The room was a pleasant one; Rorkins’s quarters were neat, and comfortably furnished, with a view across the darkening valley to the far distant peaks, where the setting sun was tinting the snow-shrouded tips a shade of red which reminded me rather too uncomfortably of clotting blood.
‘Were you expectin’ ’em to?’ Visiter asked, permitting a faintly knowing smirk to twitch his moustache as he called my bluff, and matched the fresh wager.
‘Not really,’ I admitted. ‘Not this quickly anyway.’ Less than a month had gone by since Brasker had first brought the rumours of a new Black Crusade to my attention. ‘But I’d have expected some kind of official rebuttal by now. The longer these stories are permitted to circulate, the more wild and exaggerated they’ll become, and the more stirred up the civilians will get.’ I shrugged again. ‘I’ve seen it all before. If the Governor doesn’t do something about it soon, they’ll be rioting in the streets.’
‘They already are,’ Sister Julien said, glancing up from her cards just long enough to raise the stakes again. I’d been surprised to see her when I’d arrived in Rorkins’s rooms for our regular tarot evening: she’d never attended one before, and I’d always assumed she’d disapprove of gambling on principle, but she certainly didn’t play like a novice. If anything, she was as good as I was, which was an interesting challenge, to say the least; I’d got so used to having things my own way over the card table that the novelty of having to really work at winning was rather an enjoyable one. ‘Or at least they’re about to. I was in Havendown yesterday, for mass at the cathedral, and the tribunes23 had rapid response teams deployed all over the capital.’
‘Sounds like a reasonable precaution,’ Rorkins said, deciding to fold after all.
‘It was more than a precaution, if you ask me,’ Julien said, knocking back her tumbler of amasec rather more briskly than such a fine example of the distiller’s art deserved, and looking pointedly at the decanter. Taking the hint, Rorkins stood, and refreshed her glass. ‘The confessor preached a sermon about the need for faith in hard times, and the sin of sedition.’
‘Sounds like business as usual to me,’ Visiter said, his hand hesitating over the pile of coins in front of him, and then withdrawing. Perfect. My pot, then, I thought.
‘The salient point being the part about sedition,’ Julien pointed out. ‘He wouldn’t have pulled that topic out of thin air. That sermon was a direct response to the popular mood, believe me.’ She sounded pretty convinced about it, which I found particularly disturbing. She knew the way the Ecclesiarchy worked about as well as I understood the labyrinthine bureaucracy of the Munitorium, and if the sisters were concerned about the effect the rumours were having on civilian morale, that meant things were getting dire indeed. She glanced at me, an implicit challenge, and stretched out a hand towards the pile of currency in the middle of the table. ‘Planning to match that, Cain, or shall I just pick it up here and now?’
‘I think I can do a little better than match it,’ I said easily, raising the stakes again, and she nodded approvingly.
‘I thought you must have picked up that last Inquisitor,’ she said casually, trying to fake me into some kind of tell, but I wasn’t about to be read that easily, so I just smiled in return.
‘I suppose you’ll have to pay to find out,’ I said. I didn’t just have two Inquisitors, there was a Primarch in there as well. It was a strong hand, one of the best I’d had all evening, and I’d won a couple of pots with far weaker.
‘The trouble is,’ Visiter said, ‘no one really knows anythin’. Astropathic communication’s in a hell of a state, with the shadow the hive fleets are castin’ in the warp, and the sector fleet’s pretty much isolated out here. Whatever news is comin’ in by courier boat’s out of date before it even gets to this side of the galaxy.’
‘Well, don’t look at me,’ Julien said. ‘I haven’t heard a thing from the preceptory in months.’ This didn’t seem to strike her as much of a deprivation. ‘Well, trust the Emperor and take a chance, as my old abbess used to say.’ She matched my bet, and turned her cards over. ‘Emperor ascendant. Still think you can beat that, commissar?’
‘Not unless I’ve got another Emperor up my sleeve,’ I said lightly, staring in what I hoped was well-concealed perplexity at the strongest and rarest hand in the game.
Rorkins and Visiter laughed, and the colonel refilled my glass for me. ‘I’m not sure praying for a miracle is quite within the spirit of the game,’ he said, as Julien scooped up the pot.
‘No need to,’ the Celestian assured him. ‘Sometimes He just provides them regardless.’ She shuffled the deck with a dexterity the owner of a downhive gambling den would have envied, and began to deal again. ‘I take it you’re all still in?’
‘Absolutely,’ Visiter assured her. ‘I’m hopin’ to get a bit of that back before you drop it in the poor box.’
‘Actually, I was planning to squander it on riotous living,’ Julien said, pausing just long enough for the rest of us to start wondering if she was actually being serious before she laughed raucously at our resulting expressions. ‘But you’re right, it can do a lot more good in the collection plate.’ Personally, I disagreed quite strongly with that opinion, and determined to divert as much of it as I could towards her first suggestion before the evening was out, with myself as the main beneficiary.
‘Whatever’s going on in the Segmentum Obscurus, I don’t suppose it’s going to affect us directly,’ Rorkins said thoughtfully, arranging the cards he’d been dealt, and opening the bidding with a low denomination coin or two. ‘Not for a while, anyway.’ Which, as things were to turn out, was about as wide of the mark as it was possible to get, although we had no way of knowing that at the time. ‘But there’s no doubt that we are vulnerable here, particularly if the civilian authorities continue to vacillate.’
‘I agree,’ I said. I turned my head, taking in the three other faces around the table. ‘The four of us are probably the most experienced military personnel on the planet.’ All right, I had my reservations about Julien, of course, but I couldn’t deny that she’d seen her fair share of action over the years, and it seemed polite to include her.
Visiter nodded sombrely. ‘In the entire subsector, more like.’ He made another token bet, and glanced speculatively at Rorkins. ‘Which means, I take it, that you didn’t just invite us here tonight for the tarot.’
‘It seemed a reasonable pretext,’ the colonel admitted. ‘We’ve got together like this often enough for no one to remark on it.’ He nodded cordially at Julien. ‘Most of us, anyway. And I’m bound to say that if we’d known you were that good a player, we’d have invited you to join us long ago.’
‘A sucker as well as a gentleman,’ Julien said, with some amusement. She glanced in my direction. ‘Are you in or out, Cain?’
With a sense of mounting trepidation, I threw some more coins in the pot. The palms of my hands were tingling again, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was standing on the brink of a precipice. ‘I’m in,’ I said easily, masking my true feelings with the ease of a lifetime’s dissembling. ‘The real question is, into what?’ I looked directly at Rorkins as I spoke. ‘Because I’d rather not find myself having to choose between friendship and duty.’ Not that I’d ever given the proverbial flying one for either, of course, but it was the sort of thing they’d expect me to say, so I thought I ought to say it.
‘I would have thought that’s obvious,’ Rorkins said. ‘Contingency planning. If things really do go ploin-shaped in the next few months, we’re going to have to be the ones to sort it out.’ Well, he was right about that too, although none of us had any idea at the time just how catastrophic a situation we’d find ourselves dealing with.
‘That sounds reasonable,’ I agreed. At least the schola was reasonably isolated, so in the event of widespread civil unrest we should escape the worst of it. ‘It shouldn’t be too difficult to defend this place if we have to.’ Not against a rabble of rioters, anyway, which at the time was the worst-case scenario I could envisage.
Julien nodded, and made her own bet. ‘I’ve already started teaching my novitiates a few counter-insurgency drills, just to be on the safe side.’ She glanced up, and stared at us, trying to read our expressions. ‘Oh, come on. Like you three haven’t considered something similar.’
‘Already doing it,’ Rorkins admitted. ‘Street fighting and house clearance.’ He discarded a couple of cards, considered their replacements, and made another token bet.
‘Optimum fleet deployment for the SDF assets we’ve got,’ Visiter said, looking faintly relieved. ‘Purely a theoretical exercise, of course.’ He replaced a single card, with a studied deliberation, which looked like a bluff to me, and raised the stakes. Everyone looked at me.
‘Heretic spotting for beginners,’ I said, throwing in five cards of no immediate value, and mildly surprised to find myself receiving the Emperor, an Inquisitor, and another Primarch to reinforce the one I’d decided to hold on to. Emboldened, I made a substantial bet, which left everyone else looking worried, and only Julien decided to match it.
‘You think that’s the main threat we’ll be facing?’ she asked seriously, holding on to the cards she already held, which was a faintly ominous sign.
‘It’s the most obvious one,’ I said cautiously, deciding not to mention my paranoid fancies about the chamber in the asteroid. By now I’d managed to convince myself that my fears of a necron tomb up there were no more than that, the simple result of old memories being disturbed in a stressful situation, and that whatever we’d be facing in the weeks to come would be far less terrible. ‘If there are any heretical cults active on Perlia, they’ll be doing all they can to take advantage of the confusion.’
