It can't be broken, used or understood by outsiders. You'd have to be in my employ for a long time to grasp the fundamentals of its mechanism/
That bodyguard. The one who betrayed your household/
'Kronsky?'
Yes. He was in your employ/
'Not for long. Even with the basics he'd grasped, he couldn't dupe me for long using Glossia/
'So we're going to be rescued?'
'I'm confident we'll be able to get off-planet/
Well, Gregor, I think that good news calls for an indulgent dessert/
The steward brought us ribaude nappe, sticky and sweet, followed by rich black Hesperine caffeine and digestifs, an oaky amasec for me and a thimble of pasha for her.
We were laughing together by then.
It was a fine dinner and a good night spent in delightful company. I have not known its like to this day.
I was woken by the jar and a thump of a halt just after dawn. Outside, a whistle blew, muffled by the car's hull, and there came the distant mutter of men's voices.
Slowly, I slid out of bed, doing my best not to disturb Crezia. She was still deeply asleep, though she rolled over and reached, murmuring, into the cooling space I had just vacated.
I tried to find some clothes. They were strewn on the floor, and with the blind down, it was a matter of touch.
I prised back the edge of the blind with one finger and peeked out. It was already light, frosty and colourless. There was a station outside, and people milling on the snowy platform.
We had reached Fonette.
I got dressed, shivering. Now the train was halted and idling, the wall vents issued a cooler wash of air.
I opened the door and slipped out, casting one last look behind me. In her sleep, Crezia had curled up into a ball, cocooning herself in the bed-sheets, shutting out the cold and the world.
Outside, it was near-freezing and very bright. The wide platform was busy with passengers leaving or joining the express, and servitor units conveying pyramids of baggage.
Snow was lightly falling. I hugged myself and stamped my feet. Several other travellers had got down from the train to stretch their legs.
Fonette station occupied an elevated area above the town, shadowed to the north by Mons Fulco and to the south by the Uttes, Minor and Major, and then the weather-veiled bulk of the Central Atens.
'How long do we stop?' I asked a passing porter.
Twenty minutes, sir/ he replied. 'Just long enough for change over and for the tender to take on water.'
Not long enough to ran down into the town, I figured. I stayed on die platform until the boarding whistle sounded and then stood in the carriage hallway leaning out of the doorway window as we slowly pulled out of town.
The station building slid by, revealing a view of the town below that had not been visible from the platform. Steep roofs iced with snow, a Minis-torum chapel, a sturdy arbites blockhouse. A landing field, just below the station causeway, filled with berthed and refuelling fliers.
One of them was small and yellow.
I went back to Crezia's cabin, took off my coat and boots and lay beside her until she woke. She rolled over and kissed my mouth.
'What are you doing?' she asked, sleepily.
'Checking the timetable/
'I don't think there are any changes on this line/
'No/ I agreed. 'We'll be at Locastre in about four hours. There's a longer halt there. Forty-five minutes. Then the long run to New Gevae/
She sat up, rubbing her eyes. Drowsy, unguarded, she was more beautiful than ever.
'So what?' she asked.
'I'll check the astropathic account there. There'll be time/
There was a knock at the door. It was the cabin-service steward with a laden trolley. The last thing we had done the night before was to order a full, cooked breakfast.
Well, not quite the last thing.
Eleena and Aemos were up, taking breakfast together. Crezia pulled on her robe and checked on Medea, who was still stable and sleeping deeply.
The signs are good/ she told me on her return. 'Tomorrow, perhaps the day after, she should be back with us/
We ate together in her cabin, picking up our conversations from the night before. It was all familiar and relaxed, as if we had adjusted our clocks by twenty-five years. I realised how much I had missed her company and vitality.
'What's the matter?' she asked. 'You seem preoccupied/
I thought about the yellow speeder.
'Nothing/ I said.
During the long, slow climb up through the Uttes to Locastre, I went through the data-slates of material Aemos had compiled since the attack on Spaeton House. I paid particular attention the name Khanjar the Sharp. Aemos had compiled a list of planet cultures where the word 'khanjar' was still in parlance. Ninety-five hundred worlds, and I went down the list systematically, even though I knew Aemos, with his greater knowledge of trivia, had already done so. Any one of them might hold the key. A khanjar was a ceremonial oathing dagger on Benefax, Luwes and Craiton. It was the slang term for a gang-lord on distant Mekanique. It was the common word for a pruning knife on five worlds in the Scarus sector alone. It was a hive-argot adjective for sharp practice on Morimunda. On three thousand worlds, it was simply the word for knife.
A knife cutting me to the quick. Who was Khanjar the Sharp? Why was he diligently seeking my destruction and the destruction of my entire operation?
I turned to consider the slate listing the injuries he had dealt against me, the deaths he had, I'm sure, ordered. They were all still shocking to me. The sheer scope of his murderous efforts astounded me. So many targets, so many worlds… and all struck at the same sidereal moment.
I found that I kept coming back to the notice of Inshabel's death. It was, simply, the odd one out. Every other victim or location target had been a specific part of my personal organisation. But Nathun Inshabel was not. He was – had been – an inquisitor in his own right. During my campaign against the heretic Quixos, almost fifty years earlier, Inshabel, then holding the rank of interrogator, had been part of my team. He had joined my fold after the death of his master, Inquisitor Roban, during the atrocity on Thracian Primaris, and had continued to aid me devotedly until after the purge of Quixos's stronghold on Farness Beta. After that, with my sponsorship, he became an inquisitor and began his own work.
Since then, we had been in contact only a few times and, apart from our old friendship, there was no connection between us. Why had he been marked out for destruction too? Coincidence was not a good enough answer.
What connected us? Who connected us? The obvious name was Quixos, but that led nowhere. I had eliminated Quixos myself.
I ran through the list of worlds again, trying to discern a link.
One of the planets named on the list was Quenthus Eight.
That name snagged me like a protruding claw. Quenthus Eight. A margin world. I had never been there. But I'd once been told about it.
Running on instinct, I cross-checked Quenthus Eight with the vast list of worlds
