be above petty human emotions, but I've noticed they seem as susceptible to flattery as anyone else.
'The balance of probabilities would seem to favour an opportunistic boarding by mineral prospectors in search of booty,' he piped, his thin tones in marked contrast to those of the Space Marine captain. 'The halo is full of small vessels, which the SDF crew would have found extremely difficult to distinguish at the range they were, given the masking effect of the hulk and the profusion of cometary debris registering on their auspex.'
That sounded plausible enough to me. It would only take a handful of people to be implanted for the taint to take root, growing stronger with each generation of hybrids, and the crew of a small vessel would do nicely for starters. Particularly if they had room aboard for a purestrain or two, to hurry the process along a bit.
'Which raises another alarming possibility,' I said. 'Given the amount of cargo entering and leaving the system, and the number of vessels carrying it, how sure can we be that some of these abominations haven't taken passage to other parts of the sector, intent on spreading their corruption as widely as they can?' The expressions of the senior officers surrounding me were all the indication I needed of just how much none of them liked that idea.
'That seems unlikely,' Drumon interjected, to everyone's visible relief, 'although it would be prudent to send an astropathic message to the appropriate authorities in the nearby systems.'
'I concur,' Gries agreed. 'Genestealer cults generally remain focussed on subverting one world at a time.' Well, I supposed he'd know, being the greatest local expert on the enemies of the Imperium, and the best way of scraping them off its collective bootsole.
'A more pressing concern is the hulk itself,' Yaffel put in, with the unmistakable air of a man dragging everyone back to the point. 'Wherever it goes, it will continue to infect inhabited systems.'
'Not to mention the ones it's already been through,' I said. I glanced round the bunker, finally managing to catch the eye of the senior intelligence analyst among the general staffers. 'We'll need to search the records, try to find other sightings that match-'
'We have already identified it,' Drumon assured me, the faint trace of amusement I recalled seeing aboard the Revenant during my convalescence surfacing briefly again. 'It's the Spawn of Damnation, first sighted in 447.M36, in the Spinward Drift. Or, at least, first sighted by anyone who survived to make a report. Its movements are as well-known as any piece of warp flotsam.'
'Well, that's a comfort, at least,' I said, trying to sound as though I meant it, and hadn't been disconcerted by the name. Who chose it, and why they can't call these things something a little more cheerful, is beyond me[39]. 'It's a shame we can't warn whoever it's heading for next.'
'Unfortunately, given the nature of the warp, such a prediction cannot be made,' Yaffel said, not quite managing to inject an edge of regret into his mechanical monotone. 'However, it may be possible to follow the hulk to its next destination.'
'How?' DuPanya asked, quite reasonably under the circumstances, while Mira merely pulled a face at me, and made a surprisingly vulgar gesture indicative of mental derangement. Privately, I agreed with her, but if the Astartes were taking this nonsense seriously, the least we could do was hear the fellow out.
'By entering the warp at the same point the hulk did,' Yaffel said, 'and following the current. We've examined the logs of numerous cargo vessels which entered and left the Viridia System over the last century and a half, and the indications are that the flow of the immaterium in this region of space and time have remained reasonably stable.'
'Reasonably stable being something of a relative term,' Drumon interjected again, dryly. 'Following the wrong current will take us to a different system entirely. But we have a good Navigator aboard the Revenant, and he considers the gamble a reasonable one.'
'Not to mention the calculations I've made, which should narrow down the possibilities considerably,' Yaffel added.
'Then, forgive me if I'm wrong,' DuPanya said, 'are we to infer that you intend trying to track down the Spawn of Damnation in your own ship?'
'We do,' Gries said flatly. His head turned, sweeping his gaze across the assembled officers. 'The Imperial Guard should be capable of resolving matters on Viridia now the back of the rebellion has been broken. Once the operations we currently have under way are concluded, we will depart.'
'You'll be missed,' I said diplomatically, stepping in before any of the Guard officers could say something unfortunate that might lead to hurt feelings or worse. 'But we must all do our duty, wherever it leads.'
Looking back, I sometimes wonder whether if I'd just had the sense to hold my tongue at that point I would have avoided a great deal of unpleasantness, but somehow I doubt it. Gries had clearly made his mind up about the whole thing before he voxed me that morning, and a captain of the Astartes is a hard man to say no to. His gaze settled on me.
'Commissar. You may accompany us, if you wish. The Spawn of Damnation is a threat to the whole sector, and will continue to be so until it is neutralised. No doubt the higher echelons of the Imperial Guard would value your report of our actions.'
'I've no doubt they would,' I said smoothly, while trying desperately to think of a plausible reason not to get dragged into this lunatic quest. None came to mind, and, once again, I found myself cursing my unfounded reputation. How could I possibly refuse, with a roomful of generals and senior commissars staring at me, mostly with undisguised envy? I shrugged, determined to make the best of it. 'My orders were to liaise with you for as long as you deem necessary, so of course I'm happy to continue. I'll instruct my aide to make the arrangements for our departure.'
'Very well.' Gries nodded, turned and strode out of the bunker without another word, followed by the rest of the Astartes and the wobbling tech-priest. A babble of voices broke out, incredulity and outrage the predominant notes, and I became aware of Mira clutching my arm, her face set.
'Ciaphas,' she said firmly, 'we need to talk. About us.'
EIGHT
JURGEN TOOK THE news of our imminent departure in his usual phlegmatic fashion, although I'm bound to say that I was less than enthusiastic at the prospect of getting back aboard a starship so soon after making planetfall. But then, for Jurgen, orders were sacrosanct. I sometimes suspected that he believed the chain of command to extend unbroken all the way to the Golden Throne, so even matters as mundane as the appointment of the day's latrine orderly were imbued with the unassailable authority of the Emperor Himself. At any event, he simply nodded and busied himself about packing my effects with no more than a simple ''Very good, sir. Will you be wanting a bit of lunch before we leave?''.
'I believe so,' I told him, after considering the matter. I'd lost little time in requisitioning a comm-bead from the newly arrived Guard contingent, to replace the one the necrons had vaporised along with the Omnissiah's Bounty, so I was able to follow the Astartes' preparations for departure without bothering Gries, which probably came as a relief to both of us. Recovering their active combat squads, who were scattered across half the system, was going to take a little time, even for warriors of their formidable efficiency, and, true to the code of their Chapter, none of them would be willing to break contact with a still-living enemy and leave the task they'd been allocated half-done.
Lunch would also be a good opportunity to take my leave of Mira (who I'd managed to detach myself from in the command bunker as quickly and tactfully as possible), on reasonably good terms. Her words had shaken me, which, given some of the perils I've faced in the Emperor's name, you might find surprising, but at least you know where you are with a charging ork. When a woman tells you she wants to talk ''about us'', the one thing you can be sure of is that no amount of combat experience is going to get you out unscathed.
To my surprise, and, I must confess, relief however, my invitation went unacknowledged, save by a sour- faced ladies maid, who informed me with mingled relish and disdain that her mistress was '''not available''. Remembering the sulky expression on Mira's face as I'd prised her from my arm and found urgent business with the intelligence analyst I'd tried to speak to before, I could well believe it. It had been obvious to me from the moment we'd first got involved with one another that our liaison would be as fleeting as all the others I'd had over the years, my position and duty to the Commissariat making it inevitable that I'd be moving on to another war as soon as the
