Dan Abnett - Eisenhorn Omnibus

I smiled. 'You tried to kill me for a start/

'You?'

'I'm an Imperial inquisitor/

At that, terror made him lose control of his body functions. He began pleading, begging, telling us all sorts of misdemeanours, none of which mattered.

I knew from the first moments that he was useless. Just a mesmerised slave, chosen for his muscle, knowing nothing. But we spent two hours with him anyway. Fischig slowly turned a wall dial near the door that vented in increasing measures of the sub-zero air outside the Sun-dome. In our heat gowns, we asked questions over and again.

When Bonz's flesh began to adhere to the metal chair, we knew there was nothing more.

'Warm him up and feed him well/ Fischig told his men as we left the cell. We execute him at dawn/

I didn't ask if that meant some arbitrary time in the next cycle or real dawn, six months away, at the start of Thaw.

I didn't much care.

Fischig left us to our own devices for a while, and I ate lunch with Aemos at a public bistro almost directly under the Sun-dome. The food was sour, rehashed from freeze-dried consumables, but at least it was hot. Fountain banks projected walls of water around the edges of the bistro so that the sun-globe light made rainbows that criss-crossed the tables and aisles. On this sombre day of mourning, there were no other diners present.

Aemos was in good spirits. He chatted away, making connections I hadn't begun to see. For all his faults, he possessed a superb mind. Every hour I spent with him, I learned more techniques.

He was forking up fish and rice and reviewing his data slate.

'Let's look at the transmission lag that Lowink detected in the messages Eyclone sent and received while on the planet/

They're all in cipher. Lowink hasn't unlocked them yet/

'Yes, yes, but look at the lag. This one… eight seconds… that's from a ship in orbit… and the timeframe matches that period in which we know Eyclone's mysterious starship was here. But this… during your struggle with him last night. A lag of twelve and a half minutes. That's from another system/

I stopped trying to macerate a lump of meat that resembled a slug and peered over. I'd never much considered the blurry side-bar that edged all astropathic message forms before.

Twelve and a half? You're sure?'

'I had Lowink check/

'So that gives us a reference frame?'

He smiled, pleased I was pleased. Three worlds in the picture. All between eleven and fifteen minutes' lag of here. Thracian Primaris, Kobalt II and Gudran/

Thracian Primaris was no surprise. That had been our last port of call, our last sighting of Eyclone. And, as far as we knew from the wretched Bonz, the place where he had recruited some or all of his servants.

'Kobalt's a nothing. I checked. Just an Imperial watch station. But Gudran-'

'A primary trade world. Old culture, old families-'

'Old poisons/ he finished with a laugh, completing the proverb.

I dabbed my mouth with a napkin. 'Can we be more certain?'

'Lowink's researching for me. Once we break the cipher… I don't mean the message cipher itself, I mean the coded headers to the actual text, we'll know/

'Gudran…' I pondered.

My vox-link chimed in my ear. It was Betancore.

'Ever hear of a thing called the Pontius?'

'No. Why?'

'I haven't either, but Lowink's cracking some of the old transcripts. In the weeks before Eyclone arrived, someone was sending messages off the approved links to a location in the Sun-dome. They talk about the delivery of The Pontius'. It's all rather vague and indirect/

'Do you have a location?'

'Why else do you employ us? Thaw-view 12011, on the west side of the dome, the high-rent quarter. Aristo turf/

'Any names?'

No, they're very exclusive and coy about such things/

'We're on it/

Aemos and I rose from the table. We turned to find Fischig standing there. He was wearing the full flak armour, carapace and visored helm of an Arbites now. I have to admit the effect was impressive.

'Going somewhere without me, inquisitor?'

'Going to find you, actually. Take us to Thaw-view.'

FOUR

The Sun-dome toured at speed.

Thaw-view 12011.

Questioning Saemon Crotes.

The wealthiest Hubrites kept winter palaces on the west perimeter of the Sun-dome. According to Chastener Fischig, they 'enjoyed both light and dark' as if that was something indulgent. They looked inwards to the lit dome and had shutters that could be opened to view the dark landscape of the winter desert. It was a spiritual thing, Aemos suggested.

Fischig shut down his terrain-following guidance as we sliced through the streets, and his heavy speeder rose up above the traffic and buildings. We hooked hard turns between glass spires and roared west.

I think he was showing off.

In the rear seating, under the roll-bars, Aemos clung on and closed his eyes with a soft groan. I rode up front with the armoured Fischig, seeing a predatory grin on his face under the visor of his Arbites helmet.

The speeder was a standard Imperial model, painted matt-brown and sporting the badges of the solar symbol and the chevrons and tail number of the local Arbites. Armoured, it turned heavily, the anti-grav straining to keep us aloft. There was a heavy bolter pintle-mounted forward of my seat. I glanced around and saw a locked rack of combat shotguns behind the rear seats.

Give me one of those!' I yelled above the slipstream and the choppy thrum of the turbo-fans.

"What?'

'I need a weapon!'

Fischig nodded and keyed a security code into a pad built into his bulky control stick. The cage on the gun-rack popped. 'Take one!' Aemos handed one over to me, and I began loading shells.

Thaw-view rose before us, a terrace of luxurious crystal-glass and ferrocrete dwellings built into the curve of the dome itself. We whipped low over stepped gardens, making ferns and palms shudder in our downwash.

Then Fischig keyed the fans to idle and we settled on a wide veranda deck, eight storeys up.

He leapt out, racking his shotgun.

I followed him.

'Stay here/ I told Aemos. He needed no further encouragement.

'Which one?' Fischig asked.

'12011.'

We edged along the wide, curving deck, clambering over dividing rails and trellises of climbing flowers.

12011 was glass-fronted, with wide sliding doors of mirrored window-plate.

Fischig swept up a warning hand, and took a coin from his pocket. He flipped it onto the terrace and it was atomised by nine separate las-beams.

He keyed his vox. 'Chastener Fischig to Arbites control, copy?'

'Copy, chastener.'

'Access dome central and shut down auto-defences on Thaw-view 12011. Immediate.'

A pause.

'Shut down authorised.'

He made to step forward. I halted him and tossed a coin of my own.

It bounced twice on the basalt terrace and rolled to a halt.

'I like to be sure/ I said.

We came up either side of the main picture window. Fischig tried the slider but it was locked.

He stepped back, apparently preparing to shoot the window in.

'It's arma-plex/ I told him, rapping my knuckles off the material. 'Don't be stupid/

I pulled the plastic bag containing Eyclone's effects from my jacket and searched for the compact las-knife. Before I found it, I found the plastic key.

Slim chances but what the crud, as Inquisitor Hapshant used to say.

I slid the key into the frame lock and the window slid aside on motorised rails.

We both waited. Perfumed air and light orchestral music wafted out past us.

Adeptus Arbites! Make yourselves known!' Fischig bellowed, his voice amplified by his helmet speaker.

They did.

Rapid gunfire, heavy calibre, blew away the terrace rail, decapitated potted shrubs and dwarf trees, cropped flower beds, and chopped down the deck's aerial mast.