As soon as we were docked, I went straight to the bridge where Maxilla greeted me like a brother.
'Are we all alive?' he asked.
'In one piece, though it was close/
'I'm sorry I had to desert you, but you saw the size of that battlegroup/
I nodded. 'I'm hoping you can tell me where it went/
'Naturally/ he replied. His astronavigators had not been idle. The chief of them emerged from their annexe at the side of the domed bridge and hummed across the red-black marble of the floor to join us. Like all of his crew, it was essentially mechanical. Its organic, human component – my guess was no more than a brain and some key organs – supported both physically and biologically in a polished silver servitor sculpted in the form of a griffin, its draconian neck swept back so its beaked visage stared down at us. It floated on anti-grav plates built into its eagle wings.
It paused before us, and projected a holographic chart from its open beak. The star map was complex, and incomprehensible to the unschooled eye, but I made out some detail.
The navigators have analysed the warp-wake of the departing fleet and made a number of algorithmic computations. The heretics are moving out of the Helican sub-sector, out of Imperial space itself, into the forbidden stellar territories of a breed I believe are known as the saruthi/
'I had guessed as much. But that in itself is a considerable area, more than a dozen systems. We need specifics/
'Here/ said Maxilla, indicating a point on the shimmering three dimensional chart with one gloved hand. The charts have it as KCX-1288. Under optimal conditions, it's thirty weeks away from here/
And what is the margin for error on this calculation?'
'No greater than point zero six. The warp-wake of the fleet was quite considerable. They may of course break the journey and re-route, but we will be watching for changes in their wake/
'Of course/ he added, 'They will presume us to be following. Even if they think you're dead, they'll know you had to have had a starship that brought you here. One they couldn't find/
The thought had crossed my mind too. Glaw and his conspirators must at least now be expecting pursuit, or expecting someone to inform on their whereabouts and destination. They would now be trusting on vigilance, their considerable massed firepower, and their headstart.
I already had Lowink busy preparing an emergency communique to send back to Gudrun and Inquisition command.
4Vhat do you know of the saruthi and their territory?'
'Nothing/ he said. 'I've never travelled there/
I thought this a curiously brief answer for a man so usually talkative.
'So/ he said at length, 'apart from our knowledge of where they're going, have we any other advantages?'
'We have/1 took from my coat pocket the item that had rested there ever since I had liberated it from Glaw's travelling trunk in North Qualm. Maxilla regarded it with frank perplexity.
'This/ I told him, 'is the Pontius/
* * *
We used a large, empty hold in the depths of the
I stood watching, my hands buried deep in my overcoat pockets against the cold of the chamber. Aemos hunched over the casket and, with Nilquit's aid, began to connect cables. I looked over at Bequin. She stood next to Fischig, and was bundled up in a heavy red gown with a grey shawl, and there was an expression of grim reluctance on her face. She'd found it all fun at first, a game, even in the face of danger at House Glaw. But Damask had changed things for her. The monster Mandragore. She knew it wasn't a game anymore. She'd seen things that many – perhaps even most – citizens of the Imperium never see. Most lives are spent on safe worlds far from the touch of war and horror, and the obscenities that lurk out there in the darkest parts of the void are myths or rumours… if that.
But now she knew. Perhaps it had changed her mind. Perhaps she didn't want to be here any more. Perhaps she was now regretting jumping so eagerly for the offer I'd made her.
I didn't ask her. She'd tell me if she had to. We were all too committed now.
'Eisenhorn?' Aemos reached out his hands and I placed the cool hard ball of the Pontius in them. With almost priestly care, he fitted it into place.
I ordered everyone back out of the hold, even the servitors, everyone except Bequin and Aemos. Fischig closed the hold door behind him.
Aemos looked at me and I nodded assent. He made the final connection and then backed away from the casket as hurriedly as his old and augme-tised limbs could manage.
At first, nothing. Small tell-tale lights winked along the edge of the casket – Eyclone's casket – and the internal wiring glowed.
Then I felt a change in air-pressure. Bequin looked at me sharply, feeling it too.
The metal walls of the hold began to sweat. Beads of moisture popped and dribbled down the wall plating.
There was a faint crackling sound, like the gentle crisping of paper in flames. It spread, growing louder. Frost was forming on the casket, on the floor around it, spreading out across the hold's decking, up the walls, across the ceiling. A glittering thickness of diamond frost coated the interior of the hold in less than ten seconds. Our breath steamed in the air and we brushed jewels of ice-dust off our clothes and eyelashes.
'Pontius Glaw,' I said.
There was no answer, but after a moment or two, a series of animal grunts and barks mewled from the vox-speakers built into the casket.
'Glaw/1 repeated.
'What-' said an artificial voice.
Bequin stiffened.
'What have you woken me to?'
'What is the last thing you remember, Glaw?'
'Promises… promises…' the voice said, coming and going as if drifting away from the microphone and then back. 'Where is Urisel?'
What promises were made to you, Glaw?'
'Life…' it murmured. 4Vhere is Urisel?' There was a tone now, an anger or an impatience. 'Where is he?'
I began to frame another question, but there was a sudden flash of activity, a crackle of electronic synapses firing across the crystal surface of the ball. It had lashed out with its mind, with its potent psychic powers. If Bequin had not been here, cancelling it out, no doubt Aemos and I would have been dead.
Temper, temper…' I said. I took a step towards the casket. '1 am Eisenhorn, Imperial inquisitor. You are my prisoner and you only enjoy cognitive function because I allow it. You will answer my questions.'
'I… will… not.'
I shrugged. 'Aemos, disconnect this menace and prepare it for disintegration!'
Wait! Wait!' the voice was pleading despite its colourless artificiality.
I knelt down in front of the casket. 'I know that your life and intellect were
