Leman Russ war-machines, painted in the blue livery of Vervun Primary, revved at idle in rows across the square. More vehicles clanked and ground their way in at the back of the square, from the marshalling sheds behind the South-Hive barracks.
General Vegolain of the First Primary Armoured, jumped down from his mount, buckling on his leather head-shield, and approached the commissar. Vegolain saluted, snapping his jack-booted heels together.
“Commissar Kowle!”
“General,” Kowle replied. He had just arrived in the square by staff limousine, a sinister black vehicle that was now pulling away behind its motorbike escorts. There were two other commissars with him: Langana and the cadet Fosker.
Kowle was a tall, lean man who looked as if he had been forced to wear the black cap and longcoat of an Imperial commissar. His skin was sallow and taut, and his eyes were a disturbing beige.
Unlike Langana and Fosker, Kowle was an off-worlder. The senior commissar was Imperial Guard, seconded to watch over the Vervunhive standing army as a concession to its continued maintenance. Kowle quietly despised his post. His promising career with the Fadayhin Fifth had foundered some years before and against his will he had been posted to wet-nurse this toy army. Now, at last, he tasted the possibility of acquiring some glory that might rejuvenate his lustreless career.
Langana and Fosker were hive-bred, both from aspiring houses. Their uniform showed their difference from Kowle. In place of his Imperial double-eagle pins, they wore the axe-rake symbol of the VPHC, the Vervun Primary Hive Commissariat, the disciplinary arm of the standing army. The Sondar nobility was keen on discipline. Some even said that the VPHC was almost a secret police force, acting beyond the reach of the Administratum, in the interests of the ruling house.
“We have orders, commissar?”
Kowle scratched his nose absently and nodded. He handed Vegolain a data-slate.
“We are to form up at company strength and head out into the grasslands. I have not been told why.”
“I presume it is Zoica, commissar. They wish to spar with us again and—”
“Are you privy to the inter-hive policies of Zoica?” Kowle snapped.
“No, comm—”
“Do you then believe that rumour and dissent is a tool of control?”
“No, I—”
“Until we are told it is Zoica, it is no one. Is that clear?”
“Commissar. Will… will you be accompanying us?”
Kowle didn’t reply. He marched across to Vegolain’s Leman Russ and clambered aboard.
Three minutes later, the Sondar Gate opened with a great shriek of hydraulic compressors and the armoured column poured out onto the main south highway in triple file.
“Who has ordered this alarm?” The question came from three mouths at once, dull, electronic, emotionless.
Marshal Gnide, strategic commander of Vervun Primary and chief military officer of Vervunhive, paused before replying. It was difficult to know which face to answer.
“Who?” the voices repeated.
Gnide stood in the softly lit, warm audience hall of the Imperial House Sondar, at the very summit of the Main Spine. He wished he’d taken off his blue, floor-length, braid-trimmed greatcoat before entering. His plumed cap was heavy and itched his brow.
“It is necessary, High One.”
The three servitors, limp and supported only by the wires and leads that descended from the ceiling trackways, circled him. One was a thin, androgynous boy with dye-stained skin. Another was a voluptuous girl, naked and branded with golden runes. The third was a chubby cherub, a toy harp in its pudgy hands, swan-wings sutured to its back. All of them lolled on their tubes and strings, blank- eyed.
Servos whined and the girl swung closer to Gnide, her limp feet trailing on the tiled floor.
“Are you my loyal marshal?” she asked, in that same flat monotone, that voice that wasn’t hers.
Gnide ignored her, looking past the meat puppet—as he called it—to the ornamental iron tank in the far corner of the room. The metal of the tank was dark and tarnished with startlingly green rust. A single round porthole looked out like a cataract-glazed eye.
“You know I am, High One.”
“Then why this disobedience?” the youth asked, atrophied limbs trembling as the strings and leads swung him round.
“This is not disobedience, High One. This is duty. And I will not speak to your puppets. I asked for audience with House Ruler Salvador Sondar himself.”
The cherub swung abruptly round into Gnide’s face. Sub- dermal tensors pulled its bloated mouth into a grin that was utterly unmatched by its dead eyes.
“They are me and I am them! You will address me through them!”
Gnide pushed the dangling cherub aside, flinching at the touch of its pallid flesh on his hand. He stalked up the low steps to the iron tank and stared into the lens port.
“Zoica mobilises against us, High One! A new Trade War is upon us! Orbital scans show this to be true!”
“It is not called Zoica,” the girl said from behind him. “Use its name.”
Gnide sighed. “Ferrozoica Hive Manufactory,” he said.
“At last, some respect,” rattled the cherub, bobbing around Gnide. “Our old foes, now our most worthy trading partners. They are our brethren, our fellow trade-hive. We do not raise arms against them.”
“With respect!” snapped Gnide. “Zoica has always been our foe, our rival. There were times last century they bettered us in output.”
“That was before House Sondar took the High Place here. Vervunhive is the greatest of all, now and ever after.” The youth-puppet began to drool slackly as it spoke.
“All Vervunhive rejoices that House Sondar has led us to domination. But the Legislature of the Noble houses has voted this hour that we should prepare for war. That is why the alarms were sounded.”
“Without me?” the girl hissed, flatly.
“As it is written, according to the customs, we signalled you. You did not reply. Mandate 347gf, as ratified by your illustrious predecessor, Heironymo, gives us authority to act.”
“You would use old laws to unseat me?” asked the cherub, clattering round on its strings to stare into Gnide’s face with dead eyes.
“This is not usurpation, High One. Vervunhive is in danger. Look!” Gnide reached forward and pressed a data-slate against the lens of the tank.
