Eisenhorn Omnibus

* * *

It took me three hours to get back to the landing field through the solid mob of revellers. I powered the quick-heeled red speeder back up to the Essene.

They were all waiting for me in the hangar as I docked. Maxilla. Crezia. Eleena. Aemos. Medea.

I tugged the rumpled copy of the astropathic communique I had received earlier out of my pocket and tossed it at Maxilla. 'We're breaking orbit. New destination: Promody.'

'What about Fischig?' asked Eleena.

'He isn't coming.'

There is a move in Carthean blade work called the teht uin sah. The phrase literally describes a position of the feet, but the philosophy is deeper. It means the moment in a duel when you gain the advantage and begin to win home. It is the turning point, the little fulcrum on which a life or death fight turns. The moment your fortunes change and you realise victory can be yours if you rally hard enough.

I felt that the astropathic communique from Promody was the equivalent of the teht uin sah. It had been sent to me, uncoded, by a trusted friend I hadn't seen in a long time.

It read simply 'Khanjar must be stopped'.

It took the Essene ten weeks to reach Promody, a jungle world on the trailing hem of the Scarus sector, specifically the Antimar sub-sector.

I went planetside alone, using the little red speeder, in case it turned out to be a trap.

They were waiting for me on a tropical hillside, below a break of pink-lobed punz trees. The evening was warm and fragrant. Insects fidgeted in the gathering dark. The air was humid.

I got out of the steaming speeder.

My old pupil, Gideon Ravenor, sustained by his force chair, rolled forward across the mossy ground to greet me. To his left, he was flanked by Kara Swole. To his right, Harlon Nayl.

SIXTEEN

Surviving Messina.

Gideon's omen.

Nothing lasts forever.

Harlon gave me a great bearhug and Kara timidly kissed my cheek on tiptoe. I gazed at them both, hardly believing it.

'You have a habit of coming back from the dead/ I said to Harlon. 'I'm just glad it's real this time.'

He frowned. 'What do you mean?'

'I'll explain later. I refuse to explain anything more until you tell me how this is possible.'

Why don't we go inside?' Ravenor suggested. He led us back up the path through the punz trees and across glades where the light was stained gold by the fleshy orange leaves that formed the canopy. Brilliantly feathered lizards flitted from branch to branch and diaphanous insects the size of man's open palm fluttered like seedcases in the humid breeze.

Ravenor's force chair hissed over the ground a few centimetres in the air, surrounded and suspended by a spherical field generated by the slowly revolving and tilting antigravity hoop that encircled it.

Beyond the wooded slope, the ground was flooded. A vast lake of yellow liquid stretched out under the jungle canopy that sprouted up from the water in lurid clumps. Fronds, rushes and fibrously rooted trees formed hammock islets in the lake, along with batteries of puffy mauve or orange zutaes with giant leaves and tangles of saprophitic vines.

Antigrav walkboards bridged out across the resinous water, linking the dryland to Ravenor's camp by way of several of the hammocks.

The camp had been raised on a duralloy raft twenty metres square, held above the water by locked, cycling repulsor lift-pods. Angular, geometric, the structure the raft supported looked like a large tent, but I realised from its gentle shimmer that it was formed from intersecting fields of opaque force energy.

We went in through the one-way field membrane that formed the door and entered a cool, climate-controlled chamber lit by glow-globes. Equipment was stacked up in metal containers and there were several items of collapsible furniture. Further screens denoted adjoining rooms, veiled off. A grey- haired man in a linen robe was working at a small camp table, reviewing data on a portable codifier.

Kara unfolded three more of the stacked camp chairs while Harlon fetched bottles of chilled fruit-water and some shrink-wrapped ration packs. A young woman came in from one of the other rooms and conferred quietly with the man at the codifier.

'You're busy here, I see?' I said.

'Yes/ said Ravenor. 'The view should be good.'

I didn't quite understand what he meant but 1 let it pass. There were other things on my mind.

Harlon thumb-popped the cap of a bottle and passed it to me before taking his seat.

'Here's to us all, still alive despite the odds.' He clinked his bottle against mine and Kara toasted with hers.

'Well?' I said.

A bunch of hard-arse mere bastards smoked the Distaff. Took the whole spire out. Killed the lot of them,' Harlon said, matter of factly, but there was still an edge of rage in his voice.

'And you?'

'Madam Bequin saved us,' said Kara.

'What?'

'We got her back to Messina okay, stable,' said Kara. 'The medicae facility at the Distaff hall made her comfortable. They got me back on my feet in about a week. Then Madam Bequin suddenly took a turn for the worse.'

'She stroked out/ growled Harlon. A really bad whassit called-'

'Cerebrovascular ischemia/ Ravenor said quietly.

'It was beyond the abilities or resources of the hall's medicae, so we rushed her to Sandus Sedar Municipal General for surgery/ said Kara. 'We knew you wouldn't want us to leave her there alone, so we stayed with her in shifts. I took one watch, and alternated with Nayl. On the night the hall was raided, I had just started my shift/

'And I was on my way back to spire eleven in an air cab/ finished Harlon.

'So neither of you were there?'

'No/

'You two… and Alizebeth… all survived?'

'Lucky us, eh?' said Harlon.

'Where is she?' I asked. And how is she?'

'Never regained consciousness. She's on vital support in my ship's infirmary/ Ravenor replied. 'My personal physician is tending her/ I knew Doctor Antribus, Gideon's medicae. Bequin couldn't be in more experienced hands.

I looked back at Harlon and Kara. I could tell the Loki-bom ex-bounty hunter was enjoying stringing this tale out. He'd probably been rehearsing it for weeks.

'So… go on/

'We went to ground. Me and Kara. We couldn't move Madam B, so we signed her in under a fake identity so she couldn't be linked to your operation. Then me and Kara went hunting. We