Eisenhorn Omnibus

'I never made this trip/ Neve said, staring steadily at the data-slate I was showing her. 'Or this/

'Of course not. But someone borrowed your authority code. Used it to gain trans-orbital access. That's how they were getting in. Look here, your code again, and again. And before that, the code headers of your predecessor, Gonfal. It goes back forty years. Each and every flurry of activity from the Sons of Bael… and other cults… can be matched by space-to-surface transfers cleared as genuine Inquisition flights/

'Emperor protect me!' Neve looked up. She put down the data-slate and called hoarsely for a servitor to bring more lights into her octastyle sanctum.

'But my authority code is protected. How was it stolen? Eisenhorn, yours was used to prove this. How was that stolen?'

I paused. 'It wasn't, not exactly. One of my associates borrowed it to prove the point/

Why doesn't that surprise me? Oh, no matter! Eisenhorn, there's a great deal of difference between you and me. You may have rogue elements in your band who act behind your back in unorthodox, unilateral ways. I do not. My code could not have been abused so/

'I accept your point, but it could. Who has access to your code?'

'No one! No one below me!'

'But above you?'

'What?'

'I said this could be one of ours. A senior inquisitor, a grandmaster even. Certainly a wily veteran with enough clout to pull the right strings/

That would require a direct override at the highest levels.

'Exactly. Let's look/

In the end, that was my adversary's downfall. All the blood and fury and combat we had gone through was as nothing to this prosaic clue that revealed his identity. To steal Neve's authority code, and the authority codes of her predecessors, my adversary had been forced to use the clout of his own identity get into the files.

The record of that operation was encrypted, of course. Sitting side by side at the codifier in her sanctum's annex, Neve and I quickly found it. It wasn't even hidden. He never thought anyone would look.

But still, it was encrypted.

The cryptology was beyond both me and Neve. But together, combining our ranks, we could request, via the Astropathicus, permission to use the Inquisition's most powerful decryption keys.

It took five hours to approve our joint rating.

Just after midnight, a scribe from the Officio Astropathicus brought us the message slate. Midwinter winds shook the sanctum's casements.

I was alone with Neve. We had felt it inappropriate to have company. This was a matter of the gravest import. We had talked, of this and that, to pass the time, though both of us were restless and edgy. She poured generous glasses of Cadian glayva, which took the edge off the cold.

Her aide announced the scribe, and he entered, bowing low, his aug-metic chassis grinding beneath his robes. He held out a slate to her clutched in the mechadendrites that served as his hand. Neve took it and dismissed him.

I rose, and put down my barely touched glass of spirits.

Neve limped over to me, leant on her silver crutch, and held up the slate.

'Shall we?' she asked.

We went into the annex and loaded the slate into the ancient codifier. The limpid green display shifted feverishly with runes. She opened the file we were after and set the key to work.

It took a moment or two.

Then the identity of the veteran who had used his power to manipulate Neve's code was revealed on the small, green-washed screen. At last, the damned had a name.

It shocked even me.

'Glory from above/ breathed Inquisitor General Neve. 'Quixos!

Aemos was arguing with Neve's chief savant, Cutch.

'Quixos is dead, long dead!' Cutch maintained. 'This is clearly a case of someone using his authority.

'Quixos is still registered as living by the annals of the Inquisition.'

'As an oversight! No body has ever been retrieved. No proof of death-'

'Precisely…'

'But still! There has been no sign or word from Quixos for over a hundred years.'

'None that we've seen/1 said.

'Eisenhorn's right/ Neve said. 'Inquisitor Utlen was presumed dead for over seventy years. Then he reappeared overnight to bring down the tyrants of Esquestor II/

'It's most perturbatory/ Aemos muttered.

Quixos. Quixos the Great. Quixos the Bright. One of the most revered inquisitors ever to roam the Imperium. His early texts had been required reading for all of us. He was a legend. At the age of just twenty-one he had

burned the daemons out of Artum. Then he had purged the Endorian sub-sector of its false goat-gods. He had transcribed the Book of Eibon. He had broken the wretched sub-cult of Nurgle that had tainted one of the palaces of Terra itself. He had tracked down and killed the Chaos Marine Baneglos. He had silenced the Whisperers of Domactoni. He had crucified the Witch-king of Sarpeth on the battlements above his incinerated hive.

But there had always been an odour about Quixos. A hint that he was too close to the evil he prosecuted. He was a radical, certainly. Some amongst the ordos said he was a rogue. Others said, in low, private voices, much worse.

To me, he was a great man who had perhaps gone too far. I simply honoured his memory and his achievements.

Because, as far as I had been concerned, he was long dead.

'Could he stile be alive?' Neve asked.

'Madam, not at all…' Cutch began.

'I don't know why you employ him/ I said, pointing dismissively at the Cadian savant. 'His advice isn't sound/

Well really!' Cutch huffed.

'Shut up and go away/ Neve told him.

She stalked across to me and took my empty glass from me. 'Go on, then. Your opinion/

'You want it? From an adventurer like me? Are you sure, inquisitor general?'

She thrust a topped-up glass of glayva into my hand so hard it sloshed. 'Just give me your damned opinion!'

I sipped. Aemos was staring over at me nervously from the settle by the door.

'Quixos could be very much alive. He'd be… what, now, Aemos?'

Three hundred and forty-two, sir/

'Right. Well, that's no age, is it? Not given augmetics, or rejuvanat drags… or sorcery/

'Dammit!' Neve said.