careful to preserve your codes in pursuit of my work. What do you mean, I brought this monster here?'
We have made enquiries/ answered an elderly noblewoman nearby. Like Maypell, she was ailing with revival sickness, and sat hunched on a litter carried by slaved servitors.
What enquiries, madam?'
This long feud with the murderer Eyclone. Five years, is it now?'
'Six, lady/
'Six, then. You have hounded him here. Driven him. Brought him, as Liege Maypell said/
'How?'
4Ve registered no off-world ship these past twenty days except yours, Eisenhorn/ Carpel said, reviewing a data-slate. The Regal Akwitane. That ship must have brought him as it brought you, to finish your war here and damn our lives. Did you choose Hubris because it was quiet, out of the way a place where you might finish your feud undisturbed, in the long dark?'
I was angry by now. I concentrated to control my rage. 'Aemos?'
Beside me, he was muttering '… and what silicate dyes do they use in their stained glass manufacture? Is the structure armoured? The supports are early Imperial Gothic in style, but-'
Aemos! The report!'
He started and handed me a data-slate from his leather case.
'Read this, Carpel. Read it thoroughly/ I pushed it at him – then snatched it away as he reached for it. 'Or should I read it aloud to all here assembled? Should I explain how I came here at the last minute when I learned Eyclone was moving to Hubris? That I learned that only by astro-pathic decryption of a cipher message sent by Eyclone two months ago? A cipher that killed my astropath in his efforts to translate it?'
'Inquisitor, I-' Carpel began.
I held up the data-slate report for them all, thumbing the stud that scrolled the words across the screen. And what about this? The evidence that Eyclone has been planning a move against your world for almost a year? And this, gathered this last night – that an unregistered starship moved in and out of your orbit to deliver Eyclone three days ago, unnoticed by your
planetary overwatch and the custodian 'Guardians'? Or the itemised stream of astropathic communication that your local enclave noticed but didn't bother to source or translate?'
I tossed the slate into Carpel's lap. Hundreds of eyes stared at me in shocked silence.
'You were wide open. He exploited you. Don't blame me for anything except being too late to stop him. As I said, you have my sincere condolences/
'And next time you choose to confront an Imperial inquisitor/ I added, 'you may want to be more respectful. I'm excusing a lot because I recognise the trauma and loss you have suffered. But my patience isn't limitless… unlike my authority/
I turned to Carpel. 'Now, high custodian, can we talk? In private, as I think I requested/
We followed Carpel's floating throne into a side annexe leaving a hall full of murmuring shocked voices behind us. Only one of his men accompanied us, a tall, blond fellow in a dark brown uniform I didn't recognise. A bodyguard, I presumed. Carpel set his throne down on the carpet and raised a remote wand that tinted the glass plates of the room at a touch.
Reasonable light levels at last. From that alone, I knew Carpel was taking me seriously.
He waved me to a seat opposite. Aemos lurked in the shadows behind me. The man in brown stood by the windows, watching.
What happens now?' Carpel asked.
'I expect your full co-operation as I extend my investigation/
'But the matter is over/ said the man in brown.
I kept my gaze on Carpel. 'I want your consent for me to continue as well as your full co-operation. Eyclone may be dead, but he was just the blade-point of a long and still dangerous weapon/
'What are you talking about?' the man in brown snapped.
Still I did not look at him. Staring at Carpel, I said, 'If he speaks again without me knowing who he is, I will throw him out of the window. And I won't open it first/
This is Chastener Fischig, of the Adeptus Arbites. I wanted him present/
Now I looked at the man in brown. He was a heavy-set brute with a loop of shiny pink scar tissue under one milky eye. I'd taken him to be a young man with his clean skin and blond hair, but now I studied him, I saw he was at least my age.
'Chastener/1 nodded.
'Inquisitor/ he returned. 'My question stands/
I sat back in my chair. 'Murdin Eyclone was a facilitator. A brilliant, devious man, one of the most dangerous I have ever hunted. Sometimes to hunt down your prey is to finish his evil. I'm sure you have experience of that/
'You called him a 'facilitator'/
'That was where his danger lay. He believed he could serve his obscene masters best by offering his considerable skills to cults and sects that needed them. He had no true allegiances. He worked to facilitate the grand schemes of others. What he was doing here on Hubris was to advance and develop someone else's plans. Now he is dead, and his scheme thwarted. We may be thankful. But my task is not done. I must work back from Eyclone, his men, from any clue he left and dig my way into whatever greater, secret darkness was employing him.'
'And for this you want the co-operation of the people of Hubris?' asked Carpel.
The people, the authorities, you… everyone. This is the Emperor's work. Will you shrink from it?'
'No sir, I will not!' snapped Carpel.
'Excellent/
Carpel tossed a gold solar-form badge to me. It was heavy and old, mounted on a pad of black leather.
This will give you authority. My authority. Conduct your work thoroughly and quickly. I ask two things in return/
'And they are?'
You report all findings to me. And you allow the chastener to accompany you/
'I work my own way-'
'Fischig can open doors and voiceboxes here in the Sun-dome that even that badge may not. Consider him a local guide/
And your ears and eyes, I thought. But I knew he was under immense pressure from the nobility to produce results, so I said: 'I will be grateful for his assistance/
'Where first?' Fischig asked, down to business at once, a hungry look on his face. They want blood, I realised. They want someone to punish for the deaths, someone they can say they caught, or at least helped to catch. They want to share in whatever successes I have so that they can look good when the rest of their population wakes up to this disaster in a few months' time.
I couldn't blame them.
'First/1 said, 'the mortuary/
Eyclone looked as if he was asleep. His head had been wrapped in an almost comical plastic bonnet to contain the wound I had dealt him. Framed in the plastic, his face was tranquil, with just a slight bruising around the lips.
