Eisenhorn Omnibus

Then I'd like to keep it that way. I'd like my enemies to believe, for as long as possible, that this assassination attempt was successful. Can I rely on your co-operation, prosecutor?'

'Of course, inquisitor/

You will take an encrypted message back to your lord procurator from me. It will appraise him of the situation and my requirements. I will also supply you with a covert vox-link with which to contact me if any further information becomes available. Any further information, Madorthene, even if you don't believe I will find it relevant/

He nodded keenly again. I didn't add the codicil that if I found this confidence broken I would come after him, the senior aides and the lord procurator himself like the wrath of Rogal Dorn. He could figure that out for himself.

* * *

After Madorthene and his crew had left the Essene, I turned to Betancore. 'What now?' he asked. 'How does it feel to be dead, Midas?'

We left the Essene at midnight aboard the gun-cutter. Fischig, conscious now, remained aboard Maxilla's ship, recovering from his punishing wounds in the Essene 's spectacularly equipped auto-infirmary.

Maxilla had agreed to keep the Essene at anchor for the time being. I had arranged to cover all revenues he stood to lose. I felt I might need a reliable ship at a moment's notice, and it also made sense that if the Essene suddenly departed, it would weaken the cover-story that we were all dead.

I talked it over with Maxilla in the bridge chamber. He sat in his great throne, sipping amasec while reconstruction servitors painstakingly restructured his lower limbs.

'I'm sorry you are now so involved, Tobius.'

'I'm not/ he said. This has been the most interesting run I've made in a long time.'

'You're prepared to stay until I give you word?'

'You're paying well, inquisitor!' he laughed at this. 'In truth, I am content to help you serve the Emperor. Besides, that oaf Fischig needs better care than your cutter's dingy medical suite can provide, and I can assure you I won't be running off anywhere until he's safely off my ship.'

I left the bridge, almost charmed by Maxilla's generous spirit. There could be many reasons why he assisted me so willingly – fear of the Inquisition being the chief one – but in truth, I was certain it was because he had rediscovered the pleasure of interaction with other humans. It was there in his eagerness to talk, to show off his art treasures, to help, to accommodate… He had been alone in the company of machines for too long.

Betancore changed the transponder codes of the gun-cutter as we left the Essene 's hold. We kept a number of alternative craft identifiers in the cod-ifier memory. For the past few months, and during the stop-over at Hubris, we had run as an official transport of the Inquisition, making no attempt to hide our nature.

Now we were a trade delegation from Sameter, specialising in gene-fixed cereal crops, hoping to interest Gudrun's noble estates in easy maintenance, pest-free crops now that the founding had drained their labour pool.

Betancore voxed Gudrun Control, identified us, and requested route and permission for landfall at Dorsay, the northern capital. They obliged us without hesitation. Another greedy trader in town for the festival.

We swept down through the vast elements of Battlefleet Scarus at high-anchor: rows of grotesque, swollen-bellied troop ships; massive destroyers

with jutting prow-rams and proud aquila emblems; the vast battleships of the line, cold, grey orthogonal giants of space, blistered with weapon emplacements; barbed frigates, long and lean and cruel as wood-wasps; schools of fighter craft, running the picket.

Post-orbital space was seething with transports, scudding tugs, resupply launches, merchant cutters, bulky service lifters and skeletal loading platforms. Away to starboard, the mixed echelons of the merchant ships, the bulk freighters, the sleek sprint traders, the super-massive guild ships, the hybrid rogues. The Essene was out there somewhere.

Winking buoy lights, describing the stacks and levels of the anchor stations, filled the night, another constellation blocking out the real starfield.

Betancore nursed us down through the traffic, down into the crystal bright ionosphere, down into the opalescent ranges of the high clouds. We were heading across the crossover from night to day as the planet turned, making for Dorsay, where dawn was coming up on another day of the Festival of Founding.

NINE

At Dorsay.

Market forces.

In pursuit of Tanokbrey.

Dorsay wasn't waking up. It had been awake all night. Vox-horns along the old streets, avenues and canals broadcast martial themes, and streamers and pennants flew from every available surface.

I had speed-read Aemos's summation of the planet: Gudrun, capital of the Helican sub-sector, Scarus Sector, Segmentum Obscurus. Boasting a human culture for three and a half thousand years, feudally governed by powerful noble houses, whose reach and power extended across three dozen other worlds in the Helican sub-sector. Thracian Primaris, that vast, bloated hub of industry and commerce, was the most populated and productive world in the region, but Gudrun was the cultural and administrative heart. And it was reckoned the combined wealth of the noble houses rivalled the commercial worth of the output of the Thracian hives.

Seen from our approach run, Dorsay gleamed white in the dawn. It lay on the coast, around the lip of a sea-fed lagoon, straddling the mighty river Drunner. From the cutter's ports as we turned in, we could see the white specks of sailboats out in the lagoon basin. Beyond the vast white spread of the city, I could see massive stockades and emplacements established in the rolling green hills and bluffs, temporary barracks for the founding regiment.

Betancore set us down at Giova Field, the municipal port serving Dorsay. It was built on a long, narrow island in the lagoon facing the city, and

the space premium meant smaller ships like ours were lowered on mono-tasked heavy elevators and berthed in a honeycomb of compartments drilled into the porous lava-rock of the island's heart.

Lowink stayed with the cutter. Midas, Aemos, Bequin and myself prepared to go into Dorsay. We changed into simple, anonymous clothing: dark blue robes for Aemos, plain black suits of good cloth and long leather coats for Betancore and myself, and a long gown of porcelain blue crepe with a cream-lace shawl for Alizebeth Bequin. Betancore, with some reluctance, had reopened Vibben's possessions to find clothing suitable for Bequin.

She didn't seem to mind that their former owner was dead.

Under red awnings fluttering in the dawn breeze, the island jetties were thick with passengers waiting for transport to the mainland. We queued among groups of merchants, visiting dignitaries and fleet ratings on furlough. Busking musicians and pedlars plied the captive audience.

At length, we hired one of the grav-skiffs lining up at the jetty. It was a long, speartip-shaped airboat with a glossy violet hull. Open-topped, it provided seats for six, with the steersman perched high at the aft over the bulbous anti-grav generators. It slid us across the lagoon, keeping two metres above the choppy, dappled water.

Dorsay rose before us. Now on its level, we could appreciate how majestic, how towering the city was. Rising above the water on stilts formed of vast basalt stacks and pillars, the buildings were constructed from smoothly fitted, cyclopean stone blocks, their facades limewashed, their shallow roofs dressed