‘Make me brave, oh Emperor,’ he said to himself, no louder than his breath. ‘Please make me brave.’
When Hiven roused Clydeus, he was groggy and in foul spirits. The corridor he clambered out into was exactly the same as when he had gone to sleep. He could have been asleep for a few moments or a week for all he knew. There was little to mark the passage of time on board the ship, and although he had been born there, and knew nothing else, it still disoriented him.
Hiven went ahead, meeting with the unofficial leader of the next section, a gunnery sergeant. When he returned, they were taken to perform their next service. There was some disagreement over the location. The crew of the section wanted to hold the worship in a chapel between two of their gun batteries. Hiven said that was far too dangerous, and there followed an argument. Clydeus was too tired to care. All he wanted was to be fed. Food was their wages for bringing the Word.
The sergeant backed down. A new place was found. Clydeus and Mathieu were given a meal, far bigger than the rations provided for the locals. They accepted them gratefully.
The service passed off as they all did: cramped, furtive and hot. Finally, it was over, and they were due to find their next resting spot, when a woman hovering by the door plucked up courage to come forward. Clydeus was packing the box with the candles and the books.
‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘Frater, can I talk to you?’
His heart sank. She had the timorous yet determined manner of all their petitioners, and Mathieu never rejected a genuine call for aid. It was going to be a long night.
He scolded himself. His thoughts were unworthy of the God-Emperor. The priests were there for others. Service to Him on Terra was paramount. His life meant nothing.
‘Remember the Emperor’s sacrifice, brother,’ Mathieu had said to him, more than once. ‘It is far greater than yours.’
‘I am no frater, mistress…?’ Clydeus said.
‘Call me Lyasona.’
‘Yes, Mistress Lyasona.’ He found it hard to look her in the eye. Not only his unworthiness was to blame for that; she was unusually pretty, and he was a bashful mess around women. ‘I am an unordained brother. That’s the frater, him who led the service in praise of our lord.’ He made himself look into her eyes when he pointed to Mathieu. The despair in them sped his heart. He swallowed. ‘Do you need something?’
She nodded.
‘Frater,’ he called to Mathieu, already afraid.
Twenty minutes later he found himself hurrying after Mathieu down a crowded, three-storey habway. Tiny cells led off every level. Grey washing hung between the gallery railings, which were so close two people could have leant out and embraced over the gap. Eyes watched suspiciously from half-open slide doors. He heard children crying, those too young to have learned to be silent.
Hiven had gone off to find a new route to their next stop, as the old one had been closed by decompression. The Corsairs weren’t maintaining the ship as well as the Ultramarines, another thing that suggested their numbers were few. Their neglect was as evident on the fabric of the vessel as it was on the faces of its crew. Clydeus walked quickly to keep up with Mathieu and Lyasona. He heard only snatches of their conversation. All he knew was that there was something wrong with the woman’s son.
They stopped at a closed door that was like all the hundreds of others.
‘This is it,’ said Mathieu. He held his hand out to the door. A terrible chill radiated from the metal. He looked back at Clydeus. ‘Can you feel it? The cold?’
He could. ‘It’s not just cold,’ said Clydeus.
‘No,’ said Mathieu. ‘No, it isn’t.’
He looked to Lyasona. She was very frightened.
‘Can you open it for me?’ he asked. ‘It would be better if you did. Your son must be strong to survive this long, and he will let his mother in. The thing that has hold of him will react badly to us, and the door may not open for me.’
She began to cry as she reached for the handle. Mathieu took her hand in his.
‘Do not fear, sister. We shall do what we can. Even here, the minions of evil have no power to defy the Emperor. He stands by us, always, I promise.’
She did not look convinced, but hesitated. ‘Please, be kind, my boy Grent does not look…’ She swallowed. ‘He does not look like himself.’
She opened the door. An icy wash of air spilled out into the corridor. Clydeus shivered. His breath plumed.
The room beyond was very small, the main feature being four bunks so closely spaced one on top of the other that it would be difficult to roll over without brushing the bunk above. A narrow way passed between the beds and the opposite wall, into which was set four lockers. A small table occupied the tiny amount of space remaining. This had a square of cloth on it, a single lit candle, and an effigy of the Emperor on the Throne scratched into a polished sheet of scavenged metal. The etching was crude, the marks blackened with soot.
Although the lumen in the room was on, there was a darkness that swallowed all the light it cast. Only the table was illuminated, as if the effigy held back the dark, yet the image of the Master of Mankind looked troubled, and His eyes were fixed upon the lower bunk.
The room smelled bad, of sickness and vomit, and something else, deep and sweet and tantalising. Clydeus felt a shameful confusion as his mouth watered.
Mathieu crouched down. Clydeus saw that what he had taken for a bundle of bedclothes was actually a small boy. Mathieu rolled him over, exposing a moon-pale face with a crusted mouth. The boy moaned. Clydeus thought he heard something chuckle behind him, and started. More strange noises came and went on the edge of hearing. Hissing, foreign words, weeping, growling. Mathieu ignored them as he inspected the boy.
‘How long has he been like this?’ Mathieu asked.
‘Three days,’ said Lyasona.
‘How did it begin?’
‘With a fever. One shift change he would not wake.’
Mathieu lifted the bedclothes. The boy was stripped to his undergarments. He was horribly thin. Although the awful cold of the room made Clydeus shiver, the boy was damp with sweat. Mathieu touched his forehead. The boy moaned again.
‘Not the sickness. When did all this start?’ He glanced up. ‘The cold, the dark. When, and how?’
The boy’s mother looked confused. She had obviously not been sleeping much. ‘Two days before his fever. There were noises. Like a rasping on the metal. I heard Grent crying one night, then heard him talking. He laughed. I thought I was dreaming.’
‘Any more sudden changes in temperature, knocking, odd noises, anything up to a week or two before?’ Mathieu bent over the boy, put his ear to his chest, then sat up sharply. ‘Here, or elsewhere in this sector?’
The woman nodded. ‘I heard rumours, talk in the laundry and in the metal reclamation foundry where I work. Moving shadows. Bad dreams. I didn’t believe them.’
Mathieu made a thoughtful noise. He reached into his habit, and pulled out the talisman of the Acronite order. He took it from around his neck, wrapped the chain about his fist, and brought it slowly towards the boy.
It had gone barely an inch towards the child when his eyes snapped open. He gave out an inhuman hiss, and scrabbled to the far side of the bed. Mathieu put away his amulet. The boy’s face cleared.
‘Mama?’ he said. He began to cry.
Mathieu stood. ‘Do not fear, little one. We shall help you.’ He turned to Lyasona. ‘It is good that you came to us. He is afflicted and must be dealt with.’