in the way/
Kara Swole was a well-muscled acrobat-dancer from Bonaventure who had assisted one of my investigations three years before and had enjoyed the experience so much she'd asked to join my retinue permanently. She was small and lithe, with very short red hair, and her muscular frame made her look almost stocky, but she was nimbler and more agile than just about anyone I had ever met and had a genuine flair for surveillance. She'd become a valued member of my team and she'd told me more than once that the employment I offered her was infinitely preferable to her previous life in the circus arenas of her homeworld.
Kara glanced in Verveuk's direction. 'He looks like a ninker to me/ she murmured. 'Ninker' was her insult of choice, a slang term from the circus Creole. I'd never had the heart to ask her what it meant.
'I believe you're right about that/ I whispered back. 'Keep an eye on him… and make sure Rassi's happy. When we get to the destination, I want you and Haar guarding them with your lives/
'Understood/
I gathered Fischig) Bequin, Aemos, Haar and Begundi around the chart table for a briefing, and also summoned Dahault, my astropath.
All right… how did you find him?'
Fischig smiled. He was obviously pleased with himself. 'The audit turned him up. At least, it turned up some appetising clues that made me look harder and find him. He'd been operating in three of the northern seaports, and also in the capital. I couldn't believe it at first. I mean, we thought he was dead. But it's him/
An audit was part of my standard operating practice, and I'd set one going the moment Lord Rorken prevailed on me to conduct the Examination, four months earlier. Under Fischig's leadership, a large part of my support staff – over thirty specialists – had gone ahead to Durer to carry it out. The purpose of an audit was twofold. First, to review and recheck the cases to be presented for Examination to make sure we weren't wasting our time and that we were in possession of all the relevant data. It wasn't that I didn't trust Lord Rorken's preparation, I just like to be certain about what I m prosecuting. Secondly, it was to investigate the possible existence of
heretical cases that might have been overlooked by the Examination. I was going to be devoting a lot of my time and resources to this clean up of Durer, and I wanted to make sure I was being thorough. If there was other recidivism here, I wanted to root it out at the same time.
Fischig and the audit team had made a virtual fingertip search of the planetary records, cross-checking even minor anomalies against my database. It proved that Rorken's preparatory work had been excellent, for very little turned up.
Except Fayde Thuring. Fischig had first discovered some off-world financial transactions that flagged because they linked to merchant accounts on Thracian Primaris that Thuring had been associated with twenty years earlier. Fischig had backtracked painstakingly through shipping registers and accommodation listings and had lucked upon some footage recorded by a mercantile company's security pict. The man captured digitally by the pict-recorder bore a striking similarity to Fayde Thuring.
'As far as we can make out,' said Fischig, Thuring's been on Durer for about a year. Arrived aboard a free trader last summer and took up residence in Haynstown on an eighteen month merchant's visa. Uses the name Illiam Vowis and claims to be a dealer in aeronautical engineering. Not short of cash or connections. Most of the business seems legit, though he's been buying up a lot of machine parts and tooling units and hiring on a fair number of local tech-adepts. From the outside, it looks like he's setting up a repair and servicing outfit. What he's actually doing is not yet clear/
'Has he purchased or rented any workspace property?' asked Begundi.
'No. That's one of the discrepancies/ Fischig looked up at me. 'He keeps moving around. Difficult to track. But four days ago, I got a good lead that he was in the northern seaport, Finyard. So I sent Nayl to get a proper look/
Harlon Nayl, a long serving member of my cadre and an ex-bounty hunter, was one of my finest. ЛУЬа! did he find?'
'He was too late to catch Thuring. He'd already gone, but Nayl got into the hotel suite he had been using before their housekeeping could clean it up, and got enough hair and tissue fibres to run a gene-scan against the samples we hold on file. Perfect match. Illiam Vowis is Fayde Thuring/
And you say he's now on a polar island?'
Fischig nodded. 'Nayl took off after Thuring, found out he had arranged passage to this place Miquol. Used to be a PDF listening station there, years ago, but it's uninhabited now. We don't know what he's doing there, or even if he's been there before. Nayl should have reached the island himself by now. He hasn't checked in, but the magnetosphere is wild as hell up near the pole, so comms are out. Long-range, anyway/
This is excellent work, old friend/ I told Fischig, and he smiled appreciatively. Godwin Fischig, once a chastener in the arbites of Hubris and a law enforcer of considerable ability, was one of my real veterans. He'd served at my side for fifteen decades now, for as long as Alizebeth Bequin.
Only Aemos had been with me longer. The three of them were my rock, my foundation, the cornerstones of my entire operation. And they were my friends. Aemos provided wisdom and an unimaginably vast resource of knowledge. Bequin was an untouchable, and ran an academy of similarly gifted individuals called the Distaff. They were my greatest weapon, a corps of psychically blank individuals who could be used to block even the most powerful psykers. Bequin was also my emotional rudder. I confided in her more than the others and looked to her for support when I was troubled.
Fischig was my conscience. He was an imposing man with an age-grizzled face that was now quite jowly. A thin down of grey hair covered his scalp where once he had been blond. The scar under his milky eye had gone pink and glossy over time. Fischig was a formidable warrior and had gone through some of the worst times at my side. But there was none more single-minded than he, none so pure… puritanical, if you will. Good and evil, Law and Chaos, humanity and the warp… they were simple, black and white distinctions for him. I admired that so. Time, experience and incident had greyed my attitudes somewhat. I depended on Fischig to be my moral compass.
It was a role he seemed happy to perform. I think that's why he had stayed with me so long, when by now he could have become a commissioner of arbites, a divisional prefect, maybe even a planetary governor. Being the conscience of one of the sub-sector's most senior inquisitors was a calling that gave him satisfaction.
I wondered sometimes if Fischig regretted the fact that I had never sought higher office in the Inquisition. I suppose, given my track record and reputation, I could have become the lord of an ordo by now, or at least been well on my way. Lord Rorken, who had become something of a mentor to me, had often expressed his disappointment that I had not taken up the opportunities he had offered to become his heir. He had been grooming me for a while as successor to the control of the Ordo Xenos, Helican sub. But I had never fancied that kind of life. I was happiest in the field, not behind a desk.
Of all of them, Fischig would have benefitted most if I had followed that kind of course. I could well imagine him as the commander-in-chief of the Inquisitorial Guard Helican. But he had never expressed any hint of unhappiness in that regard. Like me, he liked the challenge of field work.
We made a good team, for a long time. I'll never forget that, and despite what fate was to bring, I'll always thank the God-Emperor of mankind for the honour of working alongside him for as long as I did.
'Aemos/ I said, 'perhaps you'd like to review Fischig's data and see if you can make any further deductions. I'm interested in this island. Punch up the data, maps, archives. Tell me what you find.'
'Of course, Gregor/ Aemos said. His voice was very thin and reedy, and he was more hunched and wizened than ever. But knowledge still
absorbed him, and I think it nourished him in the way that food or wealth or duty or even love kept other men going way past their prime.
