the main sewer, its surface moist and slick with lichen, although the branch passage we'd entered seemed to be a storm drain rather than a cloaca, to Mira's evident relief. The trickle of water under our boots was clear, and noticeably less odiferous than the stream we'd so recently left. 'What's that?'
'Nothing good,' I said, stopping to examine the patch of lichen she'd spotlighted. It had been scraped by something, which had left parallel grooves of visible brickwork. I spread my fingers, barely able to span them. 'Are there any stories of mutants living down in the tunnels here?'
'Of course.' Mira began to laugh, before realising I wasn't joking. 'There are always stories about the undercity. I doubt there's anywhere in the Imperium which doesn't have its folk tales.'
Well, she was right about that, which didn't mean there wasn't a germ of truth in at least some of them. There was no point worrying about it though: the soldiers behind us were real enough, and anything else we might run into was only a potential threat. I gestured ahead of us, into the darkness. 'After you,' I said.
'I thought you said ''ladies first'' didn't count on the battlefield,' Mira said, moving off, with a grin in my direction.
'It does when you're carrying the light,' I told her, making sure I hung back enough to take advantage of my black coat in the darkness. A faint alteration in the pattern of echoes tickled the edge of my awareness, and I urged her on, picking up my own pace as I did so. 'Better get moving. They're coming back.'
Mira needed no further encouragement and broke into a trot, her lasgun held ready for use. I followed, my own weapons readied, hoping I wouldn't need them, but rather suspecting I would before too much longer.
The faint current of air was growing a little stronger now, and I began to hope we'd make it back to the surface before the pursuing troopers picked up our trail again, but in this I was to be disappointed.
'Kill the light,' I murmured, just before the footsteps reached the junction behind us, and, to my relief, Mira did so at once, without arguing.
'I can see daylight,' she breathed, the relief in her voice palpable, and I must confess to feeling the same. A faint grey glow was seeping into the tunnel from somewhere up ahead, and we hurried towards it, certain that our pursuers must be gaining by now. The scuffling of bootsoles behind us suddenly became more resonant, telling me plainly that they'd entered the narrower passage behind us, and my shoulderblades began tingling, anticipating a las-bolt at any moment.
The glimmer up ahead began to grow brighter, but the yellower glow of luminators began to pervade the tunnel too, and I turned, loosing off a flurry of las-bolts from my pistol. I scarcely expected to hit anyone, but I was hoping it might take the edge off their enthusiasm at the very least.
'Are you sure you should be giving them ideas?' Mira asked waspishly, but I was too busy trying to listen to the commotion behind us to pay any attention to her. The bobbing light dimmed, and the rhythm of boot against brick was abruptly disrupted. The echoes made it hard to be sure, but it sounded to me as if the leading trooper had stumbled, or even been brought down if I was really lucky, and the others were either tripping over him or breaking stride to negotiate the sudden obstacle.
'I've just bought us a few more seconds,' I snapped. 'Don't waste them!' The light up ahead was bright enough to pick out our surroundings by now - more lichenous brick - and I could see the droplets of water thrown up by our feet as they slapped down in the thin film of moisture coating the tunnel floor. The air current was stronger too, and smelling fresher; we were almost out into the open air.
Abruptly we broke free of the tunnel, into a wide chamber, from which a number of passageways similar to the one we'd entered by led. Mira stopped, almost in the centre, illuminated by a wan shaft of sunlight, which struck highlights from the garish ornamentation on her tunic and her by now rather bedraggled coiffure. 'Frakking warp!' she said feelingly.
I was so surprised by the sudden barrack-room oath in the mouth of a lady of breeding that it took me a moment to register the reason for her outburst. When I did, I'm bound to confess, I felt like heartily endorsing it. Daylight and fresh air alike were coming from a metal grille in the ceiling, at least a metre above our heads, with no obvious method of getting to it, or through it even if we could.
'Up on my shoulders!' I said, stowing my weapons to free my hands and stooping to offer Mira a boost.
She looked at me as if I was deranged.
'I'm a chatelaine, not a carnival performer!' she snapped.
'You'll be a dead one if we can't get that grille open,' I retorted. 'Would you rather lift me up to it instead?'
Any verbal response to that being entirely unnecessary, she simply slung her lasgun across her back and clambered up to perch awkwardly on my shoulders, her legs dangling either side of my neck like an overstuffed scarf. I reached up to steady her, and she slapped my fingers away, almost overbalancing in the process.
'Keep your hands to yourself!' she squealed, in tones of outrage.
'I'm sure you're convinced you're the Emperor's gift to men,' I snarled, 'but believe me, a furtive fumble is the last thing on my mind at the moment. Get the frakking grille open!' The squad pursuing us was getting uncomfortably close by now, and although it was hard to make anything out with Mira's thighs clamped to my ears, I was suddenly convinced that I could hear movement down some of the other tunnels too.
'It won't move!' she called, an edge of panic entering her voice. 'It's been welded shut!'
'Oh, nads,' I said, the coin suddenly dropping as I looked up to see how she was doing, and picked out a couple of small stubs of metal on the rim of the grille. I'd seen identical protrusions not long before, where the ladder had been removed from beneath the trapdoor we'd entered the tunnels beneath the palace by, and I was suddenly prepared to bet a year's remuneration that a similar one had stood here not long before. 'We haven't been chased here, we've been herded.'
'What are you talking about?' Mira demanded, as I handed her down, with a considerable sense of relief. All that padding might be aesthetically pleasing, but it didn't exactly make her a lightweight.
'I mean we're trapped,' I said, with as much restraint as I could muster, and drew my weapons again. There was definitely movement in several of the tunnels, but I couldn't be sure which, and how great: the echoes were overlapping too much. If I could determine one that was clear, we might still be able to make a run for it, though...
Abruptly, that hope evaporated, as the rebel squad which had attacked us on the surface trotted into the chamber, their lasguns level. They were a couple of men short, though, which gave me a certain amount of vindictive satisfaction; if I was on my way to the Golden Throne, at least I'd be taking an honour guard with me.
Mira unslung her own weapon and brought it up, but I forestalled her with a hand on the barrel.
'Stand down,' I said. 'They obviously want us alive, but I'm sure they'll change their minds if you start shooting.'
'Quite right, commissar,' someone said behind us. The voice was vaguely familiar, but it wasn't until I turned and saw the sergeant of Mira's detail emerging from another of the tunnels that everything fell into place. He was carrying his lasgun too, with an easy confidence that told me he was perfectly willing to use it the moment he felt the need. There were another three or four familiar faces standing beside him, in the same ridiculous uniform, including our vox man, his backpack transceiver still in place. All were still carrying their guns, but the satchel charges had evidently been stashed somewhere else for safe keeping. Where the rest of the squad were, I had no idea, but strongly suspected they'd paid dearly for refusing to turn their coats. The sergeant and his cronies were looking decidedly the worse for wear, their flak armour scored and dented, their faces pained. 'Milady will be a great asset when she joins us, but you, in the heart of the Imperial war machine, will be a prize beyond value.'
'Dream on,' Mira said scornfully. 'If you think I'm going to betray my world and my father, you're even more stupid than you look.'
'You'll think differently when the brood takes you in,' the sergeant assured her, and a gush of ice water seemed to sluice down my spine. There were innumerable minor wounds among the turncoat soldiers, but all had sustained identical ones below the ribcage, marked by a trickle of blood, already clotting. I'd seen wounds like those before and searched the men's faces again. As I'd expected, they looked dazed and disorientated, but followed the lead of the sergeant. He alone seemed alert and in control, his own armour unmarred - a third-generation hybrid, then, or even later, able to pass fully for human.
Despite my mounting horror, I kept my voice steady, concealing the knowledge of what I'd deduced and looking desperately round the chamber for some avenue of escape. More people, or, to be more accurate, things that looked like people, were emerging into the light, from tunnel mouth after tunnel mouth, some armed, mostly
