Eisenhorn Omnibus

'I want to see these sarathi with my own eyes.'

I should mention the dreams.

They did not over-trouble me during the voyage, but still they lingered, every few days or so. I seldom dreamed specifically of the blank-eyed, handsome man, but he lurked obliquely in other dreams, a bystander, looking on, observing, never speaking.

The lightning flashes escorted him, closer in each dream.

At ship-dawn of the third day of the twenty-ninth week, I rose silently and left my quarters, heading down towards the hold area where Pontius was secured. It was a good four hours until our daily conversation was due to start.

I climbed into a service duct adjoining the hold space, and crawled down until I reached a circulation grille that looking down into the hold itself.

There was frost on the grille.

Below, a figure crouched by the casket, huddled in robes, lit only by a hand- lamp. The overhead lights were not on.

Pontius was awake. The frost told me that much, and I could see the tiny flashes of firing synapses and hear the low hiss of his voice.

Tell me of the Border Wars, the ones you mentioned last time. Imperial losses were great, you said?'

'I tell you much and you tell me little back/ replied the figure. 'That was not our agreement. I said I would secretly help you if you helped me. Power, Pontius, information. If you want me to act as your emissary, I need a show of trust. How can I communicate your will to your allies, if I know nothing of the 'true matter'?'

A pause.

'What is this about?' the figure asked. What is at stake, what thing of great value?'

Another pause.

'You should go before they discover you. Eisenhorn is becoming suspicious/

Tell me, Pontius. We're nearly there, just a few days to go. Tell me so I can help you/

'I… will tell you. The Necroteuch. That is what we are after, Alizebeth/

EIGHTEEN

KCX-1288 by the light of the quill-star. Into the Wound. The wrongness.

On the first day of the thirty-first week, just under a day outside Maxilla's estimate, the Essene burst back into realspace deep inside the system designated KCX- 1288. Almost at once we were in danger.

The local star was a vast, swollen fireball pulsing and retching out its last few millions years of life. Distended and no longer spherical, it glowed with a malevolent pink fire beneath a cooling crust of black shreds and tatters that looked like rot infecting its granular skin. Firestorms swirled and blistered across its enlarged surface and vomited gouts of stellar matter out into the system. An immense column of excreting gas and matter plumed away from the behemoth star, almost a light year long. It looked like a huge, luminous quill stabbed into the soft ball of that sun.

From the moment of our arrival at the translation point, sirens and alarms began shrilling on the bridge. External radiation levels were almost immeasurable, and we shuddered and rocked through waves of searing star debris. The entire system was lousy with drifting radioactive banks, ash clouds, flares and the splinters of matter they projected, and magnetic anomalies. Our shields were full on and already we were taking damage.

Maxilla said nothing, but furrowed his brow in concentration as he steered the juddering ship in through the treacherous course, negotiating the gravity pools and radioactive undertows.

'It's falling apart/ said Aemos, awed, gazing at the main projection screen and the furiously scrolling bars of data that flickered across it. The whole damn system is in a state of collapse.'

'Any sign of them?' I called to Maxilla.

'We must be right on their tail. They were half a day ahead of us, no more. Damn this interference. Wait-'

What?'

He said something I couldn't hear over the cacophony.

'Say again!'

Maxilla cancelled the screaming sirens. The juddering and shaking continued, and now we could hear the groaning and creaking of the Essene's hull under stress. He pointed to the pict-plate that overviewed the Essene's sensor operations.

'I'm picking up their drive-wake and gravitational displacement, but in these conditions it's getting really hard to read them with accuracy. There-' He tapped a gloved finger on the plate. That's undoubtedly a drive-wake, but how do you explain it?'

I shook my head. I'm no mariner.

They've split/ said Midas, looking over our shoulders. The main portion has fallen back, maybe out of the system itself to a safe distance, and a smaller, core group has continued on in. Maybe five ships, six at most/

That's how I read it too/ Maxilla agreed. 'A fleet division. I'd guess they didn't want to risk sending their biggest ships into this maelstrom/

'I can see why/ murmured Bequin, gazing at the seething turmoil on the main display.

'Forget about the ones that have withdrawn. Follow the lead group in/ I said.

'I would advise-' Maxilla began.

'Do it!'

With the aid of his navigational servitors, he adjusted the Essene's trajectory and set on after the drive-wake of the smaller group, driving in system.

There! There, look!' Maxilla called out suddenly, adjusting a secondary display unit to magnify and enhance an image. It was distant, but we could see the burst-open hulk of an Imperial cruiser drifting in a halo of slowly dissipating energy.

'Definitely one of Estrum's ships. Holed by meteor storms. They ran into trouble the moment they pressed on/

The Essene shook again.

What about us?' I asked.

Maxilla conferred with Betancore. There was a particularly violent shudder and the main lights went out for a second.

'We need shelter/ Maxilla told me frankly.

As far as the Essene's bewildered and over-taxed sensors could establish, there were fifteen planets in the system, as well as millions of planetoid fragments, mostly ragged embers of wasted rock and venting energy. Our

quarry's drive wake led directly to the third largest, one of the inner worlds. It was a scabby, ruined, semi-shattered ball with lingering swathes of swirling bluish atmosphere. Craters covered its northern hemisphere-some impacts had been so large that they had torn open the mantle and exposed the livid red core beneath, like a skull cracked with devastating wounds. Even as we watched, we saw scatters of light dot and blossom across the surface as meteors struck and incinerated continents far below.

We tore in through the convulsing fabric of space, past moons of blood and striated mackerel clouds of dust. A vast sheet of stellar fire swept out at us, throwing the ship wildly off course and hurling silver lumps of rock and ice against our shields.