He smirked. That was something unexpected he pulled from the operative’s ebbing thoughts. The Void Baron’s secret, and the explanation for the shabby appearance of his agency’s compound on Iesta; for all the outward glitter and show the merchant clan put on for the galaxy at large, the truth whispered in the corridors of its ships was that the fortunes of Eurotas were waning. Little wonder then that the clan’s master was so desperate to hold on to any skein of power he still had.
It made things clearer; Spear had known that sooner or later, if he murdered enough members of the Eurotas staff and made it look like Sigg was the killer, the baron would send an operative to investigate. He never expected him to come in person.
Matters must be severe…
Spear halted in front of the red jade frieze, and reached out to touch it, tracing a fingertip over the sculpting of the Warrant of Trade. This place was full of glittering prizes, of that there could be no doubt. A thief in Spear’s place could make himself richer than sin – but the killer had his sights set on something worth far more than any of these pretty gewgaws. What he wanted was the key to the greatest kill of his life.
The hubris of the rogue trader irritated Spear. Here, in this room, there were objects that could command great riches, if only they were brought to market. But Eurotas was the sort who would rather bleed himself white and eat rat-meat before he would give up the gaudy trappings of his grandeur.
As if thought of him was a summons, the doors to the audience chamber opened and the Void Baron entered in a distracted, irritable humour. He shrugged off his planetfall jacket and tossed it at one of the squad of servitors and human adjutants trailing behind him. ‘Hyssos,’ he called, beckoning.
Spear imitated the operative’s usual bow and came closer. ‘My lord. I had not expected your shuttle to return to the Iubar until after we broke orbit.’
‘I had you voxed,’ Eurotas replied, shaking his head. ‘Your communicator implant must be malfunctioning.’
He touched his neck. ‘Oh. Of course. I’ll have it seen to.’
The baron went for a crystalline cabinet and gestured at it; a mechanism inside poured a heavy measure of wine into a glass goblet, which he snatched up and drank deeply. He gulped it down without savouring it. ‘We are done with our visit to this world,’ Eurotas told him, his manner veering towards a brooding sullenness. ‘And it has taken our dear Perrig along the way.’ He shook his head again and fixed Spear with an accusing glare. ‘Do you know what she cost me? A moon, Hyssos. I had to cede an entire bloody moon to the Adeptus Terra just to own her.’ He walked on, across the mosaic floor. The cabinet raised itself up on brass wheels and rolled obediently after him.
Spear searched for the right thing to say. ‘She had a good life with us. We all valued her contribution to the clan.’
The baron turned his glare on the vanishing planet. ‘The Governor would not stop talking,’ he said. ‘They wanted our fleet to remain in orbit for another week, something about “helping to stimulate the local economy”…’ He snorted with derision. ‘But I have little stomach for the festivals they had planned. I walked out on them. More important things to do. Imperial service and all that.’
Spear nodded thoughtfully, deciding to feed the man’s mood. ‘The best choice, my lord. With the situation as it is in this sector, it makes sense for the clan to keep the flotilla moving. To be in motion is to be safe.’
‘Safe from him.’ Eurotas took another drink. ‘But the bastard Warmaster is killing us by inches even so!’ His voice went up. ‘Every planet he binds to him costs us a weight in Throne Gelt that we cannot recover!’ For a moment, it seemed as if the baron was about to give voice to something that might have been considered treasonable; but then he caught himself, like a man afraid he would be overheard, and his expression changed. ‘We will head for the edge of this system and then make space to the rendezvous point at the Arrowhead Nebula.’
Spear knew already what their next port of call would be, but he asked anyway. ‘What will our intentions be there, lord?’
‘We will lay to wait to assemble the clan’s full fleet, and while we are there meet a ship from Sotha. Aboard are a party of remembrancers under the Emperor’s aegis. I will personally take them home to Terra, as the Council has requested.’
‘The security of the remembrancers is of great concern,’ said Spear. ‘I will make all arrangements to ensure their safety from the moment they board the Iubar to the moment we bring them to the Imperial Palace.’
Eurotas looked away. ‘I know you’ll do what is required.’
Spear had to fight down the urge to grin. The path was open, and now all that he needed to do was follow it all the way to the end. To the very gates of the Emperor’s fortress–
NO
The voice crackled in his ears like breaking glass, and Spear jerked, startled.
NO NO NO
The baron did not appear to have heard it; the killer felt a peculiar twitch in his hands and he glanced down at them. For one terrible moment, the skin there bubbled and went red, before shifting back to the dark shades of Hyssos’s flesh. He hid them behind his back.
NO
Then the echo made the origin of the sound clear. Spear let his gaze turn inwards and he felt it in there, moving like mercury.
Sabrat. Until this moment, Spear had believed the purgation that the idiot reeve’s cohort interrupted had gone to plan, but now his certainty crumbled. There was still some fraction of the stolid fool’s self hiding in the shadowed depths of the killer’s mind, some part of the false self he had worn that had not been expunged. He pushed in and was sickened by the sense of it, the loathsome, nauseating morality of the dead man staining his mind. It was bubbling up like bile, pushing to the top of his thoughts. A scream of recrimination.
‘Hyssos?’ Eurotas was staring at him. ‘Are you all right, man?’
‘I…’
NO NO NO NO NO
‘No.’ Spear coughed out the word, his eyes watering, and then with effort took control of himself once more. ‘No, lord,’ he went on. ‘I… A moment of fatigue, that’s all.’ With a physical effort, the killer silenced the cries and took a shuddering breath.
‘Ah.’ The baron approached and gave him a kindly pat on the shoulder. ‘You were closest to the psyker. There’s no shame in being affected by her loss.’
‘Thank you,’ said Spear, playing into the moment. ‘It has been difficult. Perhaps, with your permission, I might take some respite?’
Eurotas gave him a fatherly nod. ‘Do so. I want you rested when we reach the rendezvous.’
‘Aye, lord,’ Spear bowed again and walked away. Unseen by anyone else, he buried the nails of his hand in his palm, cutting the waxy flesh there; but no blood emerged from the ragged meat.
Rufin found another intercom panel on the station’s mezzanine level and used it to send out an all-posts alert; but if anything he became even more afraid when the only men that reported back were the ones at the armoury. He told them to hold the line and started on his way to them. If he could get there before any of the terrorist attackers did, he could open the secure locks and drag out all the big, lethal weapons that he had been so far denied the chance to use. There were autocannons down there, grenade launchers and flamers… He’d give these loyalist bastards a roasting for daring to cross him, oh yes…