Eisenhorn Omnibus

War-bells.

The long, slow task begins.

Idon't know if i did convince the inquisitor general. i don't know if i could. but she heard me out and stayed around for another two hours, helping to locate the files of connected cases and other materials. Past nine, she was called away to a disturbance on an island community in the Caducades. Before she left, she offered accommodation for me and my staff in the minster, which I politely declined, and made it clear that 1 had her permission to continue my investigation in Kasr Derth, provided I kept her informed.

'I've heard stories about your… adventures, Eisenhorn. I don't want anything like that happening on my turf. Do we understand each other?'

We do.'

'Good night, then. And good hunting.'

Fischig and I were left alone in the archivum.

'You were wrong/1 told him.

'How's that?'

'I did like her.'

'Hah! That hard-nosed bitch?'

'Actually, I liked her because she was a hard-nosed bitch.'

I always took pleasure in meeting a fellow inquisitor who conducted their work fairly and seriously, even if their methods differed from mine. Neve was a thoroughbred puritan, and lacked patience. She was abrupt to the point of rudeness. She was over-worked. But she called things as she

saw them, despised sloppiness, and took the threats to our society and way of life completely seriously. In my opinion, there was no other way for an inquisitor to behave.

We worked on until midnight, studying and collating the contents of hundreds of case-files.

By then, the gun-cutter had arrived from the landing fields at Kasr Tyrok, in response to my vox-summons. Fischig found one of Neve's rubricators and charged him with making data-slate copies of the most promising files ready for our return in the morning. Then we got back into the speeder and flew through the castellum's zig-zag streets to the town field.

The stars were out, and it was cool. Noctule moths fluttered around the landing lights of the waiting cutter.

There was a mauve smudge in the night sky, down low over the eastern horizon. The rising nebula of the Eye of Terror. Even from this great distance, just a blur in the heavens, it put a chill into me. If the two-headed eagle symbolises all that is good and noble and right about the Imperium of Mankind, that rancid blur symbolised all that was abominable about our eternal foe.

Laughter and warm voices greeted Fischig as we went aboard. Aemos shook him repeatedly by the hand and Bequin planted a quick kiss on his cheek that made him blush. He exchanged a few playful put-downs with Nayl and Medea, and asked Husmaan if he was hungry.

'Why?' the scout-hunter asked, his eyes widening in anticipation.

'Because it's supper time/ said Fischig. 'Betancore, get this crate into the air/

We were going to that safe place he had mentioned.

I had not been aboard the sprint trader Essene for some five years. A classic Isolde-pattern bulk clipper, the ship was like a space-going cathedral, three kilometres long, and looked as majestic holding low anchor above Cadia as it had when I first saw it, nearly one hundred years before, in the cold orbit of Hubris.

Medea coasted us in towards the cargo hatch of the gigantic craft.

'A rogue trader?' asked Inshabel cautiously, looking over my shoulder at the ship ahead.

'An old friend/1 reassured him.

Ship master Tobias Maxilla was, I suppose, my most unlikely ally. He'd made his living shipping luxury goods officially, and unofficially, along the space lanes of the Helican sub-sector. He still did. He was a merchant, he maintained, to any that asked.

But he had a pirate's taste for adventure, a yearning for the halcyon days of early space-faring. 1 had hired his ship during the affair of the Necro-teuch, to provide nothing more than transport for my team, but he had

got involved, with increasing glee, and he'd stayed involved ever since. Every few years over the last century, I had hired him to run passage for me or some of my staff, or he had contacted me to ask if his services were needed. Just because he was bored. Just because he was 'in the neighbourhood'.

Maxilla was an educated, erudite man with a subtle wit and a taste for the finest things in life. He was also a charming host and a good companion and I liked him immensely. He was in no way a formal part of my staff. But he was, I suppose, after all this time and all those shared adventures, a vital part.

The year before, when it had been decided that Fischig would embark on this long chase after the Cadian leads, I had asked Maxilla to provide him with transportation, for as long as it was needed. He had agreed at once, and not because of the generous fee I was offering. To him, it sounded like a true adventure. Besides, it promised a chance to give the old Essene a proper long run out, beyond its normal route of the Helican stars.

A genuine voyage. An odyssey. That was what Tobias Maxilla lived for.

He was waiting in the cargo hold to greet us even before the extractor vents had finished dumping out the cutter's thruster fumes. He had dressed for the occasion, as was his way: a blue velvet balmacaan with huge sleeves and a jabot collar, a peascod doublet of japanagar silk, patent leather sabattons with gold buckles, and a stupendous fantail hat perched on his powdered periwig. His face was skin-dyed white and set with an emerald beauty spot. His cologne was stronger than the thruster fumes.

'My dear, dear Gregor!' he cried, striding forward and taking my proffered hands with both of his. A signal joy to have you back aboard our humble craft/

'Tobias. A pleasure, as always.'

And dear Alizebeth! Looking younger and more fragrant than ever!' He clasped her hand and kissed her cheek.

'Steady now, you'll smudge… your make up/

'Wise Aemos! Welcome, savant!'

Aemos just chuckled as his hand was shaken. I don't think he ever knew quite what to make of Maxilla.

'MrNayl!'

'Maxilla/

And Medea! lavishing! Quite ravishing!'

'You certainly are/ Medea said playfully, allowing one of her circuit-inlaid hands to be kissed.

'You knew we were coming, Maxilla. You might have smartened up a bit/ said Fischig. Amid laughter, they shook hands. I realised their relationship had changed. They had been together for a year on this mission. Fischig had never really connected with Maxilla: their backgrounds and lives were too divergent. But clearly, a year in each other's company had brokered a true friendship at last.

That pleased me too. An inquisitor's band works better when it is close knit.

Maxilla turned to Husmaan and Inshabel.

You two I don't know. But I will, as that's what dinners are for. Welcome to the Essene!

Maxilla's sculptural gold servitors, each one a work of art, had prepared a late supper for us in the grand dining lounge. A pate zephir of crab, fresh from the Caducades that morning, ontol flowers poivrade in their husks, fillets of Cadian boar hongroise, followed by an ebonfruit talmouse with cream and