'Haven't you ever thought about doing something else with your life?' she asked, in the studiedly neutral fashion she tended to adopt when trying to pretend she didn't care about the answer. I shook my head, in some perplexity, completely taken aback.
'Haven't you?' I asked in return, knowing that my question was equally ridiculous. Mira had been born into the ruling family of an Imperial world, destined since birth to take a hand in the governance of it, and her education and upbringing had no doubt been predicated on that assumption; she was no more in control of her own destiny than I was. From the day I'd been earmarked as a future commissar by a schola progenium functionary with a twisted sense of humour[76], my destiny had been set in stone, just as surely as Mira's, but without the limitless wealth which had no doubt made her adolescence a great deal more comfortable than mine.
'All the time,' she said, to my surprise, an unexpected air of wistfulness entering her tone. Then she smiled, as if to make light of the revelation, and shrugged, setting up interesting oscillations in the clinging gold fabric of her favourite gown - which still made her look like a joygirl if you asked me. (Not that I considered that aspect of her appearance much of a disadvantage.) 'But I've never had the chance.' She glanced slyly at me. 'Not until now.'
'Being offworld, you mean,' I said, managing to look as though I was interested without too much difficulty. This was a happy knack I'd acquired early enough in life to make my time at the schola more tolerable than it might otherwise have been, and which had served me well in my subsequent career.
Mira nodded. 'Partly,' she agreed. She had a conspiratorial air about her now, as though she were about to impart some intimate confidence and feared being overheard by eavesdropping servants. Although since Jurgen was still the closest thing either of us had to domestic staff, and his presence was pretty noticeable even if he was out of sight, I didn't think she had too much to worry about on that score. 'It opens up a number of opportunities.'
'Does it?' I asked, unable for the life of me to see what she was driving at.
She nodded again. 'It does,' she confirmed, as though I'd grasped whatever she was blethering about, and tacitly agreed to it. 'With the right consort beside me, my father is bound to confirm me as his heir. Viridia will need strong leadership once the mess there has been cleaned up, and I mean to provide it.'
'Well, good for you,' I said, trying not to smile as I finally grasped the real reason she'd manoeuvred her way aboard our ship of fools. She was positioning herself to fend off any rival claimants to the throne, and wanted to prove she'd go to any lengths to protect her home world. And if she could bag herself a Space Marine to marry along the way, so much the better: the idea was quite ludicrous, of course, but somehow quite charming in its naivety[77].
'I can't think of a safer pair of hands.'
'I was hoping you'd say that,' Mira replied, smiling at me in a way I hadn't seen for a long time. I returned it in kind, reflecting that this augured well for the subsequent progress of the evening, and I'm bound to say that I was far from disappointed.
FOURTEEN
I DIDN'T HAVE long to enjoy the sudden change in Mira's demeanour, although she certainly became more pleasant company after that. It was almost like reliving the earliest period of our association back on Viridia, and although I couldn't help wondering now and again just what lay behind it, particularly on the occasions I noticed her staring at me like a kroot at some choice piece of carrion, for the most part I was simply grateful for the improvement. So marked was it, in fact, that I was taken by surprise when a momentary flash of her old petulance surfaced one morning, just after Jurgen had knocked on the door of my quarters to inform me that Gries had requested my presence on the bridge at my earliest convenience.
'Do you really have to go rushing off like a lackey every time someone sends you a message?' she asked, as I scrambled into my uniform, considered the state of my cap, which, despite Jurgen's best efforts, was still looking the worse for wear, and decided it would just have to do. 'He said at your convenience, not right this minute.'
'It's the same thing,' I told her, tilting it to hide the worst of the damage and checking the effect in the mirror. 'You might be able to keep people waiting as long as you like, but I can't. That was just a polite way of phrasing an order.' Deciding I was now as presentable as I was ever going to be, I turned back, to find her expression softening again.
'That won't be the case forever,' she said, and I smiled back, touched by her evident faith in the upward trajectory of my future career. (Which has indeed left me in a position to keep people waiting as long as I care to, and has done for some decades now, although the realities of my job mean that it's still generally impolitic to indulge the impulse.)
'I'll be back as soon as I can,' I promised, and left as briskly as protocol demanded. It was pointless asking if she wanted to accompany me; even if she could be persuaded to get moving, which with Mira was always problematic at best, the summons had been for me alone. It was entirely possible that a separate message had been dispatched to her own quarters, of course, in the interest of diplomacy, but she was so unlikely to respond that it wouldn't have surprised me to learn that Gries had simply given up even the pretence of attempting to include her in whatever decisions needed to be made.
'Commissar.' The Space Marine captain nodded an affable greeting to me as I strode onto the bridge, before returning his attention to the shipmaster, with whom he was in animated conversation about matters which meant nothing to me.
If I'd had any lingering doubts about what I was doing here they were dispelled almost at once, as my eye fell on Yaffel and Drumon, who were standing by the hololith, examining the star chart with every sign of satisfaction. I ambled over to join them, and the Techmarine glanced up as I approached.
'Commissar,' he said, standing aside to allow me an unimpeded view of the display. 'Just in time.'
'So I see,' I replied, taking in the familiar star chart in a single glance. One of the three systems Yaffel had pointed out at our previous meeting was illuminated more brightly than any of the others, and the green funnel had shrunk again, to leave the icon apparently stuck in its narrowing throat. I nodded an acknowledgement to Yaffel. 'Congratulations, magos. It seems your calculations were as reliable as ever.'
'By the grace of the Omnissiah,' the tech-priest agreed, contriving to project an impression of smugness despite the monotone in which the words were delivered, and the impassive expression generally considered appropriate to one of his calling. 'We've detected another weakness in the interface between realities, consistent with those we recorded earlier in the voyage.'
'Which should put us about here,' Drumon added, prodding at the icon I'd already noticed with his servo-arm. 'The Serendipita System. Within the usual margins of error, of course.'
'Of course.' I nodded, to show I was paying attention, and tried not to reflect that predicting an emergence point from within the warp was always little more than an exercise in wishful thinking; although our Navigator had proven remarkably able in that regard, which no doubt accounted for the fact that he or she had been engaged by a Space Marine vessel in the first place[78]. Then something else struck me. 'We've always emerged blind before. How can you be so sure this is the system we're coming out in?'
I should have known better, of course, and spent most of the next ten minutes nodding politely while Yaffel sprayed technical terms around, and wondering if his augmetic enhancements really had left him without the need to inhale, or whether it simply sounded like that to my reeling eardrums. Eventually he ground to a halt.
'Something of an oversimplification,' Drumon observed sardonically, 'but accurate in its essentials.' Then, apparently to ensure I realised he was joking, he added, 'It seems the most likely candidate, given the flow of the currents our ship has been following.'
'I see,' I said, wondering why Yaffel couldn't have been equally succinct. 'Is it an Imperial system?'
'Absolutely Imperial,' Drumon assured me, with one of the faint smiles I'd grown more adept at noticing since we'd become sparring partners. 'One primary world, seven others supporting settlements, and thirty-eight void stations. Two of which are starports with dockyard facilities.' Which clearly accounted for his buoyant mood. I began to feel a sense of growing disquiet.
'That implies a sizeable population,' I pointed out. 'Which means it's the perfect place for the 'stealers to spread their taint.'
'Quite so,' Gries agreed, turning to look in our direction, and reminding me once again of the phenomenal
