Саймон Спуриэр - Lord of the Night

Still human, if only just .

Cog and his kin had grown massive. Shunning the need for higher thought, rapid evolution had seen their skins grow thick, their brows brachiate, their chests barrel. Over long centuries of clambering through forests their arms had elongated and formed secondary elbows, their legs had shortened and their hands had grown massive.

Kaustus had found Cog in the slaughterpits of Tourelli Planis, where he was goaded by his captives with energised spears and electroflails, forced to grapple a succession of beasts and automata for the crowd's amusement. His hands had been taken from him, replaced with crude bionics. Watching the giant enter the ring with a tribal prayersong to the Emperor, Kaustus had been impressed with his piety as well as his physique, and had purchased him from the slavers for a princely sum.

Given her own barely-tolerated mutation, since joining Kaustus, Mita had found in Cog an unlikely ally. She knew he regarded her with a simple devotion based on lust, and tolerated his clumsy advances with good grace despite never acceding to them. If stringing-along a gentle giant was all it took to secure his personal loyalty, she judged it a fair price to pay Cog had been her natural choice of companion for this degrading foray into the plebeian morass of the hive's lower tiers, and his puppy-like pleasure at her invitation had been touching. He'd remained at her side ever since, as silent as a statue, until the vindictors of Cuspseal had decided his obvious corruption was a step too far and had him tranquilised. Cog was dragged away in chains, Mita's protests were ignored, and her sympathy for whichever poor devil was eventually chosen to release him had been growing ever since.

Cog didn't lose his temper often. But when he did ...

The door, set firmly in a ferrocrete bracket, crumpled like a dead leaf. Cog followed it through with his head dipped and his shoulders hunched, roaring like a hive-tram. The vindictor sergeants reacted as if electrified, staggering away, fumbling for power mauls. A third voice added to their panicky exclamations, and it took Mita a moment to spot Orodai's unlucky aide, clutched in the giant's mechanical hand like a fleshy club.

Cog's beetle-black eyes squinted, seeking the best target, brows collecting in moronic indecision. One of the sergeants settled the matter by thumbing the activator of his maul and shouting: ''Stand down, brute!'' — an attempt at machismo derailed when Cog contemptuously swatted him with the aide's body. Both men tumbled in a confusion of limbs and squeals towards the wall, which vented a layer of mortar dust at their impact. The second sergeant whimpered.

Commander Orodai, by contrast, had reacted with admirable composure, directing his impatient eye at Mita. To her psychic senses he exuded little fear, only an air of irritation at what he clearly considered to be a waste of his time.

Across the room, Cog picked up the second vindictor, plucked off his helmet like the lid from a tube of paint, and crumpled it into a ball between thumb and forefinger. The man — stupidly, in Mita's view — took a ridiculous attempt at a punch to Cog's face, an attack which earned him a rib-splintering bearhug and a casual toss over the giant's shoulder.

Cog turned his attention to Orodai and advanced, metal fingers twitching. A long cord of spittle dangled from his lower lip.

'I think that will do, interrogator,' the commander said, regarding Mita calmly. 'You've made your point.'

She smiled, nodded with faux graciousness, and turned to the advancing monster.

'Cog,' she said. 'I'm fine.' She eked out a small portion of her consciousness and coiled herself around Cog's simple mind, soothing its jagged edges.

'H-hurt you?' Cog said, blinking rapidly. 'Hurted Mita?'

'No,' she said, voice reassuring. 'Look. You see? Not a hair. Now calm !

Cog nodded, accepting her words with child-like trust. He thrust his massive hands into the pockets of his robe and appeared to switch off, like a machine devoid of fuel.

Mita turned to Orodai with a smirk.

'Now,' she said, mollified. 'Perhaps you'd care to explain why you requested our help?'

Orodai's eyes narrowed, twinkling.

'Perhaps it would be best,' he said, and this time it was he who smirked, 'if you see for yourself.'

Sergeant Varitens did not like mutants. Sergeant Varitens did not like psykers. Sergeant Varitens did not like disobedience or poverty or aristocracy or crime. He did not like the underhive, or the upper spire, or indeed the middle tiers.

As far as Mita could tell, skating delicately across the surface of his mind, Sergeant Varitens did not appear to like much at all.

(Sergeant Varitens did not like the Inquisition.)

(Sergeant Varitens did not like women.)

He and Mita were getting along just famously .

'And what is this zone called?'

'Lady, it's the warp's-arse underhive . We don't call it anything.'

'But... these settlements... They must have names. What do the people call th—'

'Look.' Varitens turned away from the Salamander's cab, sighing through the mike of his voxcaster. 'You want to stop and ask some of these filth what they call places, or where the local sights are, or which unfortunate bastard they just ate for dinner, you be my guest. Only don't come running to us when you look down and some godless mutie has his teeth in your leg.'

They travelled in silence after that.

The underhive had not been what Mita had expected. Trawling across its debris-flows and pitted causeways in the vindictors' Salamander, she found herself admiring the diversity, as if there were some secret beauty — some hidden order — lurking in the decay. Here, salvaged waste was gold. She found herself impressed by the colour and vivacity of the sights, as if life had recoiled from the squalor of its environment in a storm of clashing hues and decorations. Gaudy totems leaned from the shadows, bright graffiti announced a dozen changes of territory: each gang name crossed through by its latest conqueror. Underhivers variously raced for cover or came out to watch as the vindictors passed, shady characters with hands reaching for — but never openly wielding — whatever weaponry they hid within heavy cloaks. Here there was vibrancy in the dark — like the perfect scarlet of a deep sea tubeworm — and Mita struggled to despise it as profoundly as Sergeant Varitens so clearly did.

Commander Orodai had assigned the sergeant as her tour-guide. She suspected he'd done so out of spite.

'Tell me, sergeant,' she said, tiring of the silence, 'what manner of crime warrants the attention of the Emperor's glorious Inquisition? And down here in this most...' she parroted his emotionless voice, ' wretched of places, to boot?'

Varitens regarded her for a moment, face concealed within the featureless orb of his visor.

'Murder.'

She blinked. 'We're investigating a murder?'

'More than one. Five confirmed, probably more. We're taking you to the most recent discovery.'

She shook her head. This assignment was growing more and more ridiculous by the instant.

'Sergeant, it's my understanding that there are several hundred unexplained deaths every day. I imagine the figure is far higher in the underhive.'

'You imagine right, lady.'

'Then I'm afraid I don't understand. Why pay such close attention to this one?'

The Salamander turned a corner and began to throttle down, and Mita became aware that her companions were preparing themselves to disembark, hefting mauls and autoguns professionally.

Varitens pointed to a side tunnel, bored from a drift of mangled steel, and cocked his head.

'Through there. You'll understand.'