‘Yes, sir,’ I said. I did not quite get the words out of my mouth as fast as New Boy. He still had the discipline and the eagerness to please of the training camps on him.
‘Very good,’ the lieutenant said. ‘Private Lemuel, I expect you to look out for Private Matosek. Show him the ropes, make sure he doesn’t reverse us into a lava field, that sort of thing.’
‘He’s already started, sir,’ said New Boy, not realising that it was unnecessary. It was just the sort of thing the lieutenant felt called on to say for the good of morale, mostly his own.
‘I would have expected nothing less,’ said the lieutenant in his most inspirational manner. In spite of myself, I was pleased.
The lieutenant lounged back in his commander’s chair and invoked the controls. The command consoles emerged from the floor of the hull and locked into place around him as the spirit of the ancient tank responded to his prayers. The Understudy moved to a position two paces behind the throne and studied the screens as if his life depended on it. Maybe one day it would. The lieutenant studied the holo-images.
‘I don’t like the pressurisation on turret two,’ the lieutenant said in the quiet murmur the upper classes always use to let you know that you should not be listening but even if you are, it does not really matter any way.
‘You’re right, sir,’ said the Understudy. His private school had most likely provided him with a certificate in obsequiousness and daily lessons in toadying. ‘Shall I have words with the repair crews, sir?’
‘Hesse is already looking at it with Antoniev,’ the lieutenant said. From his expression, you would have thought the Understudy imagined the lieutenant had uncovered this by some supernatural means instead of having issued orders for it this morning. ‘If anything needs to be done I will petition it through the proper channels and with the proper offerings.’
‘Very good, sir,’ the Understudy said.
‘Still, all things considered, I think we’re set right to carry the Emperor’s word to the heretics.’ The lieutenant sounded sincere when he said that. It was a gift of his. ‘What do you think, Private Lemuel?’
‘I think they’ll be sorry they ever saw us, sir,’ I said with the right amount of stupid enthusiasm and bloodthirsty malice. It was what the lieutenant expected from us Lower Hivers and who was I to disappoint him?
‘We’ll know soon enough,’ he said, taking his pipe from his pocket, stuffing it with lho weed and lighting it. I knew something big was coming. He puffed away for a few moments, like a Baneblade’s exhausts on a frosty morning on Belial. He looked unspeakably cheerful, the way he always did when he was about to break very good or very bad news. ‘We’d better put on a good show tomorrow.’
‘Why is that, sir?’ I asked. The Understudy glared at me. He had wanted to ask that question himself even though he had most likely already known the answer.
‘Because we are under the eyes of the Lord High Commander Macharius himself.’
‘He’s here on Karsk IV, sir?’ I was as impressed as the lieutenant intended me to be. Macharius was the most successful general the Imperium had produced in a millennium, although you’ve got to remember this was before the campaigns that really made his name.
‘He soon will be,’ the lieutenant said. ‘His ship is in orbit.’
It seemed that Karsk IV was even more important than I had thought if Lord High Commander Macharius himself had come to supervise the opening of the campaign.
‘It’s possible there will be a surprise inspection tomorrow. Not a word of this to anybody,’ the lieutenant said, tapping the side of his nose. He might as well have winked. If he had not wanted me to spread the word among the crew he would never have said anything.
‘So Macharius is really here?’ Anton said, studying his cards with the sort of concentration he normally reserved for his prop-nov. He sounded impressed. Everyone around the little counter in the Baneblade’s galley looked that way, even the engine-room boys who normally didn’t give a toss about anything.
I considered my hand. It was the usual rubbish that Anton always dealt me. It was such a regular event that if I had not known better I would have suspected him of being a card sharp.
‘Apparently so,’ I said.
‘It’s not the sort of thing the lieutenant is usually wrong about,’ Ivan said, raising a finger to indicate that Anton should deal him a new card. A low whistle emerged from the corner of his mouth. I wondered, as I always did, whether he knew he was doing that. He looked at it for a moment and discarded the Four of Cogs. He drummed his metal cheeks with his fingers. There was the faintest of echoes.
‘True.’ Oily rubbed his grease-stained fingers on the chest of his uniform. It was how he had got his nickname. He raised two fingers and Anton handed him two cards. A frown flickered across his face. ‘How do you do it, Anton? How do you always manage to give me exactly what I don’t need?’
He discarded the two cards. One was the Black Commissar; the other was the Tech-Priest. I winced. Those two cards might have given me a winning hand in spite of Anton’s skill at dealing trash.
‘Why do you think he’s here?’ Anton asked. ‘Macharius, I mean?’
‘The lieutenant told me he wanted to check up on you,’ I said. ‘He heard you would make a good Space Marine.’
‘Piss off,’ Anton said.
Ivan gestured for another card and slotted it into his hand. He held all of his cards close to his chest. He looked at them for a moment, put them face down on the table and poured himself another glass of Oily’s specially distilled coolant fluid, then unwrapped a ration bar and stuffed the whole thing into his mouth. He crunched it with his metal teeth as he frowned down at his cards.
New Boy entered the galley and looked at us. ‘Playing Shonk?’ he asked.
‘No,’ Anton replied. ‘We’re not.’
Oily looked up at him. ‘Yes we are. Don’t believe Anton. He lies.’ There was nothing friendly in his tone. He was just annoying Anton.
‘Can I play if a seat comes free?’ New Boy asked.
‘They never come free,’ Anton said.
‘It’s another dead man’s chair, is it?’ New Boy asked. Silence settled on the game like a shroud. It was exactly the wrong thing to say and you could tell that Matosek suddenly appreciated that. He had spoken out of irritation and triggered more than he bargained for. Nobody looked at him. It was as if he wasn’t there.
The game went on. Fingers were raised to indicate the number of cards people wanted. Glasses were filled from the coolant flask. Hands were tossed in as players folded. Eventually New Boy got the message and left. The air thawed perceptibly when he was gone.
‘That boy has a lot to learn,’ Oily said.
‘He’s all right,’ I said. ‘He’s just nervous.’
‘Let’s hope he’s not nervous when we meet the heretics,’ Anton said. ‘That could get us all killed.’
‘You won’t have to worry about that,’ Ivan said. ‘Macharius will have made you a Space Marine by then.’
‘Ha bloody ha.’
Drums sounded. Bugles blared. We lined up outside our tanks, dressed in our parade best. The heat made us sweat but we stood still as statues. We’d been standing that way for hours. We’d keep standing that way for as long as it took. It was a general inspection, and Lord High Commander Macharius himself was conducting it.
I swallowed. The ash in the air was making the back of my throat dry and tickly. I kept my mind deliberately blank for as long as I could and when I could not do that any more I let my thoughts wander where they would to memories of Belial and Charybdis and Excalibur and Patrocles. The back of my right arm itched but I could not scratch it. The combat shotgun it was my special privilege as a driver to carry felt heavy against my shoulder. I fought down the urge to fidget. That just made things worse.