Dan Abnett - Eisenhorn Omnibus

The inside surface of the vast dome was mirrored. A plasma-effect sun-globe burned high in the roof of the dome, bathing the town below in fierce white light. The town itself, spread out beneath us, seemed to be made of glass.

We set down on the wide bay, a twenty-hectare metal platform that overlooked the town. The surface of the platform gleamed almost white in the reflected glare. Heavy monotask servitors trundled out and towed us into a landing silo off the main pad, where pit-servitors moved in to attach fuel lines and begin fundamental servicing. Betancore didn't want anybody or anything touching the gun-cutter, so he ordered Modo and Nilquit, our two independent servitors, to take over the tasks and send the locals away. I could hear them moving around the hull, servos whirring, hydraulics hissing, exchanging machine code data bursts with each other or with Uclid in the drive chamber.

Aemos offered to find accommodation for us in the town itself, but I decided a landing berth was all we needed. The gun-cutter was large enough to provide ample facilities for our stay. We often spent weeks, or months living aboard it.

I went to Lowink's small cabin under the cockpit deck and roused him. He hadn't been with me long: my previous astropath had been killed trying to translate a warp-cipher six weeks before.

Lowink was a young man, with a fleshy, unhealthy bulk hanging from a thin skeletal frame, his body already deteriorating from the demands of a psyker's life. Greasy implant plugs dotted his shaved skull, and lined his forearms like short spines. As he came to the door, some of these plugs trailed wires, each marked with parchment labels, which led back to the communications mainbox above his cradle. Thousands of cables spilled or dangled around his tiny cabin, but he instinctively knew what each one did and could set and adjust plug-ins at a moment's notice. The room reeked of sweat and incense.

'Master/ he said. His mouth was a wet pink slit and he had one lazy, half-hooded eye that gave him a superior air quite belying his actual timidity.

'Please send a message for me, Lowink. To the Regal Akwitane.' The Regal was a rogue trader we had employed to convey the gun-cutter and ourselves to Hubris. His vessel awaited us in orbit now, ready to provide further warp-passage.

'Give Trade Master Golkwin my respects and tell him we are staying for now. He can be on his way, there is no point in him waiting. We could be here for a week or more. The usual form, polite. Tell him I thank him for his service and hope we may meet again.'

Lowink nodded. 'I will do it at once.'

Then I'd like you to perform some other tasks. Contact the main Astro-pathicus Enclave here on Hubris and request a full transcript of off-world traffic for the past six weeks. Also any record of unlicensed traffic, individuals using their own astropaths. Whatever they can make available. And a little threat that it is an inquisitor requiring this data wouldn't hurt. They don't want to find themselves caught up in a major inquisition for withholding information/

He nodded again. 'Will you be requiring an auto-seance?'

'Not yet, but I will eventually. I will give you time to prepare/

'Will that be all, Master?'

I turned to go. 'Yes, Lowink/

'Master…' he paused. 'Is it true that the female Vibben is dead?'

Yes, Lowink/

'Ah. I thought it was quiet/ He closed the door.

The comment wasn't as callous as it sounded. I knew what he meant, though my own psychic abilities were nascent and undeveloped next to his. Lores Vibben was a latent psyker, and while she had been with us, there had been a constant background sound, almost subliminal, broadcast unconsciously by her young, eager mind.

I found Betancore outside, standing under the shadow of one of the gun-cutter's stubby wings. He was gazing at the ground, smoking a lho-leaf tube. I didn't approve of narcotics, but I let it go. He'd cleaned himself up these past few years. When I'd first met him, he had been an obscura user.

'Damned bright place/ he muttered, wincing out at the abominable glare.

A typical over reaction. They have eleven months of pitch dark, so they light their habitat to an excessive degree/

'Do they have a night cycle?'

'I don't believe so/

No wonder they're so messed up. Extreme light, extreme dark, extreme mindsets. Their body clocks and natural rhythms must be all over the place/

I nodded. Outside, I had begun to be disarmed by the notion that the night was never going to end. Now I had the same feelings about this

constant noon. In his brief, Aemos had said the world was called Hubris because after spending seventy standard years getting here aboard their ark-fleet, the original colonists had found the surveys had been incorrect. Instead of enjoying a regular orbit, the world they had selected pursued this extreme pattern of darkness and light. They'd settled anyway, co-opting the cryogenerational methods that had got them here as part of their culture. A mistake, in my view.

But I wasn't here to offer a cultural critique.

'Notice anything?' I asked Betancore.

He made a casual gesture around the landing platform. They don't get many visitors in this season. Trade's all but dead, the world's on tick-over/

"Which is why Eyclone thought it vulnerable.'

"Yes. Most of the ships here are local, trans-atmospheric. Some are for the custodians' use, the others are simply berthed-up over Dormant. I make three non-locals, aside from us. Two trader launches and a private cutter/

'Ask around. See if you can find out who they belong to and what their business is/

'Sure thing/

'Eyclone's pinnace, the one you shot down. Did it come from here?'

He took a suck on his narc-tube and shook his head. 'Either came from orbit, or up from some private location. Lowink picked up its transmissions to Eyclone/

Til ask to see those. But it could have come from orbit? Eyclone may have a starship up there?'

'Don't worry, I already thought to look. If there was one there, it's gone, and it made no signals/

'I'd like to know how that bastard got here, and how he was intending to leave again/

Til find that out/ said Betancore, crashing the tube stub under his heel. He meant it

What about Vibben?' he asked.

'Do you know what her wishes were? She never mentioned anything to me. Did she want her remains sent back to Tornish for burial?'

"You'd do that?'

'If that was what she wanted. Is it?'

'I don't know, Eisenhorn. She never told me either/

Take a look through her effects, see if she left any testament or instructions. Can you do that?'

'I'd like to do that/ he said.

I was tired by then. I spent another hour with Aemos in his cramped, data-slate-filled room, preparing a report for Carpel. I set out the basic details, reserving anything I felt he didn't need to know. I accounted for my actions. I made Aemos check them against local law, to prepare myself in case Carpel raised a prosecution. I wasn't unduly worried about him, and

in truth I was bulletproof against local legislation, but I wanted to check anyway. An Amalathian prides himself on working with the structures of Imperial society, not above or beyond them. Or through them, as a mon-odominant might. I wanted Carpel and the senior officials of Hubris on my side, helping my investigation.

When my report was complete, I retired to my room. I paused by Vibben's door, went in, and gently placed the Scipio naval pistol between her hands on her chest, folding the shroud back afterwards. It was hers, it had done its work. It deserved to be laid to rest with her.

For the first time in six years, I did not dream about Eyclone. I dreamed of a blinding darkness, then a light that refused to go away. There was something dark about the light. Nonsense, I know, but that was how it felt. Like a revelation that actually carried some grimmer, more profound truth. There were flashes, like lightning, around the edges of my dream's horizon. I saw a handsome, blank-eyed male, not blank-eyed like one of Eyclone's drones, but vacant like an immense, star-less distance. He smiled at me. At that time in my life, I had no idea who he was.