recesses of his skull.
Tymas Rhizor/ he stammered.
Good. Another gentle push at his slowly yielding mind. The levels of fear and caution were palpable.
'Of Gillan His Acre, Goddes land.'
I switched to speech, without the psychic urge now. 'Gillan's Acre? You mean Gillan's Acre?'
'Seythee Gillan His Acre?'
'Gillan's Acre?'
He nodded. Theesey truth.'
'Proto-Gothic, with generational nuance shift/ Aemos said, coming near. 'Damask was colonised something over five hundred years ago, and was isolated for a lengthy period. The population may not have flourished, but the language has perpetuated vestiges of older linguaforms.'
'So this man is likely to be a native, a settler?'
Aemos nodded. I saw our captive was looking from my face to Aemos's, trying to follow our conversation.
'You were born here, on Damask?'
He frowned.
'Born here?'
Ayeam of Gillan His Acre. Yitt be Goddes land afoor the working.'
I looked round at Aemos. This would take forever. 'I can manage,' Aemos said. 'Ask away.'
Ask him what happened to Gillan's Acre.'
'Preyathee, howcame bye lossen Gillan His Acre?'
His story was painfully simple, and shaped by the ignorance of a man whose kind had worked the poor soil of a lonely edgeworld for generations. The families, as he called them, presumably the clan groups of the original settlers, had worked the land for as long as his memory and the memory of his elders went. There were five farming communities, and two quarries or mines, which provided building materials and fossil fuel in exchange for a share of the crops. They were devout people, dedicated to the nurture of 'Goddes land'… God's land, though there was no doubt that by 'God' they meant the God-Emperor. As little as four years ago, after the time of the last survey from which records we worked, there had been upwards of nine thousand settlers living in the communities of Damask.
Then the mission came. Rhizor reckoned this to have been three years before. A ship brought a small order of ecclesiarchs here from Messina. They intended to establish a retreat and spiritually educate the neglected settlers. There had been thirty priests. He recognised the name Dazzo. Archprieste Dazzo/ he called him. Other off-worlders came too, not priests like Dazzo and his brethren, but men who worked with them. From the way he described them, they sounded like geological surveyors or mining engineers. They concentrated their attentions on the quarries at North Qualm. After about a year, the activity increased. More ships came
and went. Settlers, mostly strong males, were recruited from the farm communities to work the mines, often brutally. The ecclesiarchs didn't seem to mind. As their populations drained, the farming settlements began to fail and die off. No help was given to sustain them. A disease, probably an off- world import, killed many. Then the volcanic activity began, suddenly, without warning. Everyone in the farmsteads was rounded up and pressed into service at the pits as if some great urgency was now driving the task. Rhizor and many like him toiled until they dropped, and later managed to escape, living like animals in the thorn forests.
So Dazzo and his mission had come to Damask, enslaved the population into a workforce, and were now hell-bent on mining out something from the territory around North Qualm. It seemed likely to me that the vulcanism had been triggered by incautious mining work.
I reached into his mind again… he trembled in fear as he felt the psychic touch… and showed him an image of Dazzo. Eagerly, he confirmed his identity. Then Locke, another face he knew and regarded with ill-concealed hatred. Locke had been chief among the men who had pressed the farmers into service. His cruelty had left a lasting mark. I showed him the faces of Urisel and Oberon Glaw, neither of which were known to him. At last, I visualised an image of the pipe-smoking man.
'Malahite/ he announced, recognising him at once. According to Rhizor, the obscura addict with the watery blue eyes was Girolamo Malahite, chief of the surveyors and engineers.
Fischig, who had joined us during the conversation, asked about the fibre-wood marker we had found at Gillan's Acre. Rhizor wrinkled his face with grief. That had marked the mass grave where the off-worlders had buried all those who had resisted.
Midas called me to the cockpit. 1 told Aemos to feed Rhizor and question him further.
Midas sat in the leather pilot's throne, his lap draped with spools of scroll paper stamped out of the electric press.
'No wonder Maxilla hid/ he said by way of an opening. 'Look here/
The scrolls were a transcription log of the astropathic and vox traffic Midas had been able to monitor from the ships in orbit. He slid a gloved finger down the jumbled columns of figures and text.
'I make out at least twelve vessels up there, maybe more. It's difficult to say an accurate figure. These here, for example, may be two ships in dialog or the same ship repeating itself/
'Coding?'
That's the interesting bit. It's all standard Imperial, the navy code called Textcept/
'That's common enough/
He nodded. And look here, the question and answer pattern indicates a capital ship checking that its fleet components have all arrived in real-space. It's a typical Imperial structure. Military… one of ours/
'A friendly fleet.'
'Not friendly, perhaps. Look at the command identifier here… that name translates as Estrum.'
The missing captain.'
The missing captain… perhaps not that missing after all. Perhaps… rogue. The whole incident at Gudrun anchorage, the mistaken recognition, the 'panic'… could have been an excuse to withdraw ships loyal to him.'
'But he's still broadcasting in standard Imperial code-form.'
'If his officers alone are party to the deceit, he won't want to alert the crews.'
An hour later, a large launch with fighter escort broke from the fleet and swung down to the surface of Damask. The transport set down at North Qualm, and the fighters circled the area twice before returning to their base ship. From the cutter, we could hear the booming roar of their thrusters rolling around the plateaux and valleys. Midas quickly switched the cutter's systems to minimum operation so they wouldn't make a chance detection of our instrumentation.
Aemos talked with Rhizor for most of the afternoon, and he seemed calmer and more willing to help once food had been given to him. As the light began to fail and evening approached, Aemos came to find me.
'If you want a way back in, that man might be able to help you.'
'Go on.'
'He knows the mines and the excavations. He worked there for a goodly while. I've spoken to him at length, and he seems certain he could show you to a cave network that links with the mining structure.'
We set out after dark in the speeder. Fischig drove, using the terrain scanner to
