‘It’s a narcotic. Somnia. It’s a morphiac derivative. That’s a Munitorum pharmaceutical stamp. Where did you get them?’
‘They… turned up during a routine search. Are they strong?’
‘Pretty strong. I mean, I’d think twice about prescribing them. Effective, but addictive. I sometimes use the liquid version as palliative relief on very damaged patients.’
‘So, to ease their last hours?’
‘Yes. I’d have to have very compelling reasons to issue them otherwise. Perhaps to a patient in chronic pain who is allergic to safer compounds. You found one of the men with these?’
‘Yes. You missing them?’
‘I’d have to check, but I don’t think so. We carry such small quantities of this as standard, Lesp or one of the other orderlies would have noticed.’
‘There is an ongoing problem though, isn’t there?’ asked Blenner.
‘Yes, and we’re working on it. But it’s usually milder sedatives that are easier to misplace. Harder stuff like this is rarer. It could have come out of the ship’s supplies. Do you want me to ask the ship’s chief medicae?’
‘No,’ he said. He paused, and then repeated the word. ‘No, I just wanted them identified. Thank you.’
‘Well, if that’s all,’ she said. She clearly had somewhere else she wanted to be.
‘I’ll take them with me,’ he said, holding out his hand.
‘I should dispose of them,’ she replied. ‘Oversight of pharmaceuticals is a medicae responsibility.’
‘It’s still a discipline matter for now,’ he said. ‘I’ll need them back as evidence.’
She resealed the bag and tossed it across to him.
‘Thank you,’ he said. He thought about the almost empty bottle in his pocket, but couldn’t bring himself to front her up with the question. He didn’t want her knowing. He needed to speak to Dorden.
Blenner nodded politely and walked out of the infirmary. Curth issued a deep exhalation of tension and hurried away into the back rooms.
In the hallway outside, Blenner collided with the orderly, Lesp, who was rushing towards the infirmary, leading Ayatani Zweil by the arm.
‘Watch where you’re going!’ Blenner exclaimed. He shot a look at Zweil, expecting some cantankerous barb back. Blenner had been around the regiment long enough to know that the old priest’s mouth didn’t possess a safety catch.
The look on Zweil’s face took him by surprise. Care, anxiety, dread.
‘What’s going on?’ Blenner asked. His mind put the pieces together. An empty infirmary. Kolding and Curth trying to get him to leave. The orderly bringing the priest in a hurry.
‘Oh, Throne,’ said Blenner, and turned back, striding through the infirmary into the back room.
‘Wait. Please!’ Lesp called after him.
‘Vaynom, what’s-your-name, Blenner. Show some Throne-damned respect and don’t be an arsehole!’ Zweil yelled. They were both rushing after him.
Blenner burst into the back office. Curth looked up from a tray of instruments in surprise, and the surprise quickly turned to despair at the sight of him. Kolding was on the far side of the room, administering a shot of something.
Dorden had brought a trolley table over when he fell. Gleaming instruments lay scattered across the deck mesh. They’d made him comfortable with bolsters from the day bed, but they hadn’t dared lift him. He looked so thin and pale.
‘This isn’t the time,’ said Curth.
‘What’s going on?’ Blenner asked.
‘Could you give the medicae some dignity and leave, please?’ she said, coming over to Blenner. Lesp led Zweil past them to the old doctor’s side.
‘Yes, there’s no need for you to be here,’ said Zweil as he went by.
‘Is he dying?’ Blenner asked. Dorden was now partially obscured by the figures crouching around him. He hadn’t even seemed conscious when Blenner walked in.
‘You know he is,’ Curth replied quietly. He could see she was battling to retain her professional composure.
‘I mean now,’ said Blenner.
‘He’s been well for the last week,’ she said, her voice still low. ‘Amazingly so. But I think the stress of making shift has taken its toll. He collapsed just now. I think we can stabilise him and get him some bed rest.’
‘He shouldn’t have come on this mission,’ said Blenner.
‘It would have been crueller to leave him behind,’ Curth replied.
‘Should Gaunt know? I should get Gaunt.’
‘No!’ she replied, fiercely. ‘He doesn’t want that. He doesn’t want a fuss. Let him rest!’
‘You’ve brought the damn priest to him,’ said Blenner. ‘If he’s come to administer the Imperial Grace, then Ibram deserves to–’
‘No,’ she replied. ‘Zweil’s his friend. He’s been supporting him through this. It seemed right to fetch him here. Gaunt doesn’t need this on his mind just now.’
Blenner swallowed.
‘I didn’t mean to just burst in,’ he said.
‘It’s all right.’
‘You could have said something. I do have a few circumspect bones in my body.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ she said.
‘I really should say something to Ibram,’ said Blenner. ‘If something happens, and he finds out I knew–’
‘Then you don’t know,’ said Curth. ‘You didn’t see anything.’
Blenner thought about this, and nodded. He turned to go.
‘Are you all right?’ he asked.
A tiny flash of surprise crossed her face, as if it never occurred to anybody to ask her that.
‘Yes, commissar. Now get along so we can work.’
Blenner left. Curth went to Dorden’s side.
‘I think he’s stabilised,’ said Kolding quietly.
‘You should take things more easily,’ said Curth.
‘Why?’ whispered Dorden. His voice was the vaguest whisper of dry leaves.
‘Because doctors make the worst patients,’ said Curth.
‘Actually, carnodons make the worst patients,’ said Zweil. ‘I knew a tamer, a circus man, worked the bag o’ nails on Hagia, and he owned this performing–’
He paused. He saw the looks he was getting.
‘However, for now, I will stipulate that doctors, in fact, make worse patients that carnodons.’
Dorden managed a tiny smile.
‘Even carnodons, let’s say, with infected gums that haven’t eaten for a week, and then you accidentally leave the cage door open…’ Zweil trailed off into a mumble.
‘Did I hear Blenner’s voice?’ Dorden asked.
‘He’s gone now.’
‘I don’t want a fuss,’ said Dorden.
‘He’s gone,’ Curth repeated. ‘He won’t say anything.’
‘Nothing to say,’ said Dorden. ‘I’ll be on my feet again in a moment. I’m just tired.’
Curth looked up and saw Lesp trying not to cry.
‘He probably wants his pills,’ said Dorden. His voice was so far away. He beckoned Curth closer with twig fingers. ‘He comes to me for a little tonic. To settle him. Make sure you look after him, Ana.’
‘I will,’ she promised. ‘But let’s look after you first.’
Close to the warp engines, the noise was immense. Everything, every surface, every wall panel, every tooth in a person’s head, vibrated at an ultrafast frequency.
Layers of armour plate and bulkheads secured the drive chambers. Some sections were sealed chambers where only conditioned servitors or crewmen in protective armour could venture during drive function. Hard, hot yellow light shafted out through the letterbox viewing slits of the reinforced hatches like the glow from a furnace room port.
Vast engineering spaces were filled with dripping, frosty coolant systems, or the black-greased pistons of circulation pumps and galvanic generators. In sooty caverns full of smoke and flame, ogryn and servitor stokers shovelled granulated promethium resin into the chutes of the combustion generators, the huge conventional turbines that ran the Armaduke’s non-drive systems. In other, cooler chambers, ancient and perfectly machined empyroscopic rotors spun along horizontal axes, maintaining the ship’s spatial equilibrium and helping to sustain the integrity of the Geller Field that protected the ship from the psycho-reactive fabric of the immaterium.