Dan Abnett - Eisenhorn Omnibus

'lust glad I was able to help/ Ravenor demurred.

'Help? Him and his kill team kicked arse! Far as I could tell, only eight of the meres got out alive. Jumped their ship and ran off-world/

I set my empty bottle down on the duralloy floor and sat forward with my elbows on my knees. 'So, Gideon/ I said, 'how in the name of Terra did you come to be there on Messina at the right time?'

'1 wasn't/ he said. 'I was there at the wrong time. If I'd reached Messina a day earlier, I'd have been there at the right time. But my ship was delayed by a warp storm that also shut down my communications/

That's the second time since I arrived you've been enigmatic/ I said. 'Is that any way to treat your old master?'

Gideon Ravenor had been my interrogator and pupil back in the late 330s, the most promising Inquisitorial candidate I have ever met. A level delta latent psyker with a RQ. of 171, he had also possessed a genius intellect rounded out with a fine education, and an athlete's physique. During the Holy Novena on Thracian Primaris, he had been caught up in the infamous Atrocity and his body had been woefully crippled. Since that time,

he had lived within the cocoon of his force chair, a brilliant mind sustained within a paralysed, useless frame.

But that had not stopped him from becoming one of the Inquisition's finest agents. I myself had sponsored his promotion to full inquisitor status in 346. Since then he had successfully prosecuted hundreds of cases, the most notable being the Gomek Violation and, of course, the Cervan-Holman Affair on Sarum. He had also penned several works of considerable insight: the celebrated essays Towards an Imperial Utopia, Reflections on the Hive State and Terra Redux: A History of the early Inquisition, a study of warp craft that was fast becoming a standard primer, and a work called The Mirror of Smoke that dealt with man's interaction with the warp-state with such conspicuous perception and poetry that I believed it would survive as much as art as it was instruction.

Ravenor was all but invisible within the dim globe of his chair's field, just a shapeless shadow suspended in the fizzling gloom. His body was utterly redundant and everything he did was performed by psi-force alone. His mind had grown stronger in his infirmity, compensating for the things denied him. I was sure he was now much more than a level delta psionic.

'My work in the last few years has required me to develop an understanding of divination and prophesy/ Gideon said slowly. Things have been… revealed to me. Things of great significance.'

I could tell he was being very careful about what he said. It was as if he wished to tell me more but didn't dare. I decided I should respect his caution, and allow him to tell me only what he felt he could.

'One of those revelations – a vision, if you like – forecast mat a violent fate would befall the Distaff on Messina. The event was predicted to the precise hour. But I couldn't get there in time to prevent it.'

'The destruction of the Distaff was predicted?' I said.

"With distressing accuracy/ he replied.

I suddenly realised I was hearing his voice, by which I mean the voice Ravenor had used before his terrible injuries, a voice produced by a man whose mouth and larynx had not been melted by burning promethium. I had become so used to the monotone synthetic speech of his chair's psi-activated voxsponder.

'My work has also allowed me perfect stronger psionic abilities/ he said, and one of them was clearly reading my surface thoughts. 'I ditched the voxsponder about a year ago. I have developed enough psionic control to broadcast my speech naturally/

'I'm hearing you in my head?'

Yes, Gregor. Hearing the voice you're used to. It doesn't work with untouchables or psychically shielded individuals of course – THATS WHY I KEEP THE OLD VOXSPONDER ON STANDBY/

He uttered the last part of his sentence mechanically via the toneless voice box built into his chair and the grating, emotion-free electronic words made us all laugh with surprise.

Though I was too late to save the Distaff, I got Kara, Harlon and Alize-beth to safety off-world/

'For that, you have my gratitude. But why summon me so far off the beaten track to meet with you?'

'Promody has secrets that we need/ he said.

'What manner of secrets?'

'I have been allowed to see the future, Gregor/ Ravenor said. 'And it isn't pretty/

'Imperial culture has never set much store by divination/ Gideon told me. 'I have come to suspect that is a great weakness/

It was much later. Night had fallen over the swampy bayou and the air was dancing with bioluminescent flies. Ravenor and I had taken a stroll along the grav walks behind his camp.

A weakness? Surely it is a greater weakness to take it seriously? If we believed the rantings of every dribbling marketplace seer, of every demented Ecclesiarchy prophet who claimed to have been granted divine revelations-'

We would be mad, true. Most of it is rubbish, lies, mischief, the delusions of broken minds. Sometimes prophetic insights are genuine, but they are usually made by psykers who have either done it by accident or who are insane. In either case, the visions are untrustworthy or too confused to be interpreted in any practical, useful way. But just because mankind isn't very good at it doesn't mean it can't be done/

'It is my understanding that other races are reputed to excel at it/ I said.

That has certainly been my experience/ he replied. 'Serving the Ordo Xenos has been enlightening. The more I have studied alien races in order to discern their weaknesses, the more I have learned their strengths/

We are talking about the eldar, aren't we?' I risked the question. He didn't reply immediately. His last words had been close to heresy. The force sphere around him flickered slightly with anxiety.

'They are a strange breed. They are able to read the invisible geography of space-time and unravel probability with great precision. But they are mercurial. Sometimes they use their insight as a lever to change the outcome of events. Sometimes they stand idle and watch as prophesies play out. I believe there is no human alive who could explain why they make the choices they do. We just don't see things the way they do/

'Their greater lifespan gives them greater perspective…'

'It's partly that. Although orthodox thinking would say that greater perspective is their curse. The Ministorum believes the eldar are too resigned to destiny. That they are indolent and almost cruel, or else brutally manipulative/

'You don't think so?'

'I'll admit only a selfish fascination, Gregor. They interact with the fundamental structure of the universe. As you might well appreciate, any talent for living or perceiving beyond one's physical body is attractive to me. My work has-'

He broke off.

'Gideon?'

'I wanted to learn something of the way their minds witness reality independent of their bodies. Their farseers, for example, have a kinaesthetic sensibility that operates regardless of the restraints of time and space-'

We paused at the edge of a walkway and looked out across the misty nocturnal swamp. Glowing insects and airborne spores drifted in the air, their paths occasionally punctuated by the sudden swoops of aerial night hunters. Sinuous things moved through the glistening water below the floating walkways, barely disturbing the oily surface.

'I've said too much/ he murmured.

"Vou do not need to be guarded with me, Gideon. I will not judge you for seeking knowledge. I'm… not the puritan you once knew.'

'I know. I would tell you if I could. But in order to learn certain things, I have been forced to make promises.'

To the eldar?'

'I cannot even confirm mat. I am not proud of the promises, but I will honour them.'