light of his rush-lamp.
He called out and feet came beating down the cell way.
'He's sick/ I heard the guard say.
'Leave him till morning/ said another.
'He'll be dead/ the first guard answered nervously.
'Please…' I stammered, reaching out my hand. It was frozen in a claw-shape, paralysed and ugly.
Others were arriving. I heard Fischig's voice.
'He needs a doctor. Trained medicae help/ Fischig said.
'It's not allowed/ complained a guard.
'Look at him, man! He's dying! An attack of some sort/
'Let me through/ said another voice.
It was the prison medic, accompanied by Interrogator Riggre, who looked as if he had been roused from his bed.
'He's faking it, leave him!' Riggre said contemptuously.
'Shut up!' Fischig snarled. 'Look at him! That's no act!'
'He's a master of deception/ Riggre returned. 'Maybe he's been licking the lead- paint off the door to aid his act, more fool him. This is a sham. Leave him/
'He's dying/ said Fischig.
'He looks bloody sick/ said a guard uncomfortably.
More cramping spasms twisted me involuntarily.
The doctor was hunched over me. I could hear the beeping of the medicae auspex he'd taken from his pharmacopoeia.
'This is no act/ he muttered. 'His body's in seizure. You can't fake muscle binding like that. Blood-oxygen is down to thirty per cent and his heart is defibrillating. He'll be dead in less than an hour/
'Give him a shot. Fix him!' Riggre yelled.
'I can't, sir. Not here. We haven't got the facilities. Ahh! Emperor, look! He's bleeding out now, from the eyes and nose/
'Do something!' Riggre screamed.
'We have to get him to an infirmary. Kasr Derth is the nearest. We have to get him there quickly or he's dead!'
That's ridiculous, doctor!' said Riggre. 'You must be able to do something…'
'Not here/
'Call up a flight, Riggre/ Fischig said.
'He's a primary level prisoner of the Inquisition! We can't just take him out of here!'
Then get Osma-'
'He's gone back to the mainland for the night/
Fischig's voice was low. 'Are you going to be the one to tell Osma you let his prize captive die on the floor of his cell?'
'N-no…'
Til tell him, then. I'll tell Osma that his man Riggre cheated him of the greatest prosecution of his career because he couldn't be bothered to authorise transport and thus let Eisenhorn die of toxic shock in this prison stack!'
'Call up transport!' Riggre shouted at the guards. 'Now!'
They carried me up to the stone-cut landing pad on a stretcher. Voices yelled and argued in the biting wind and blizzard-filled darkness. The medic had fixed up an intravenous drip and was trying to slow my symptoms with a few drugs from his kit.
The pad lights flickered on, cold and white, and backlit the swirling snow into black dots.
A Cadian shuttle came in low, its attitude thrusters shaking the pad and swirling the snowfall in random directions.
They carried me into the green-lit interior, and the worst of the cold and weather was stolen away as the hatch shut. I felt the sudden yaw of the ship as we lifted up and turned away towards the mainland. Fischig loomed over me, adjusting the restraining straps that held me into the shuttle's cot. Over the roar of the engines, I could hear Riggre shouting at the pilot.
Covertly, Fischig slid an injector vial from his coat and fixed it into the intravenous rig in place of the prison doctor's injector.
I began to feel better almost at once.
'Stay still, and breathe slowly,' Fischig whispered. 'And hold on tight. Things are about to get… bumpy'
'Contact! Three kilometres and coming in hard!' I heard the co-pilot blurt.
'What the hell is that?' Riggre demanded.
There was a pinging sound from the shuttle's transponder.
Throne of Earth! They've got a target-lock on us!' exclaimed the pilot.
'Attention, shuttle,' a voice crackled over the open vox. 'Set down on the islet west five-two by three-six. Now, or I will shoot you out of the air!'
My vision was settling now. I looked across the green-lit cabin and saw Riggre pull a laspistol.
'What treachery is this?' he asked, looking at Fischig.
'I think you should do as you were asked and set down right now,' said Fischig calmly.
Riggre made to fire the pistol, but there was a searing flash of light. Fischig burned Riggre with a blast from the digi-weapon built into the jokaero-made ring on his right index finger. An item of Maxilla's jewellery, I realised.
Fischig fired another shot that vaporised the vox-system.
'Down!' he ordered the pilot, pointing the ring at him.
The shuttle made emergency groundfall in a snowstorm on the rocky beach of the uninhabited islet.
'Hands on your heads!' Fischig ordered the crewmen as he bundled me out of the hatch and into the blizzard.
I could barely walk and he had to support me.
'You poisoned me,' I gasped.
'I had to make it convincing. Aemos prepared a dose that would reactivate the binary poison in your body. Pye's poison.'
'You bastards!'
'Hah! A man who can curse is far from dead. Come on!'
He half-carried me across the shingle into the oceanic gale, snowflakes stinging our faces. Lights swooped down ahead of us as the gun-cutter came in, executing a perfect, Betancore-style landing on the icy shingle.
Fischig bundled me up the landing ramp into the arms of Bequin and Inshabel.
'Dear lord, have you thought this through?' I wheezed.
'Of course we have!' Bequin snapped. 'Nathun! Get a booster shot of antivenin!'
For the second time in under two years, I was dead. From binary poison at the hands of Beldame Sadia's henchmen on Lethe, and now, dead in a shuttle-crash, brought down in a winter-storm over the Caducades on Cadia.
