‘There you are,’ said Luna Fazekiel, walking over to them.
‘Is there a problem?’ asked Hark.
‘I don’t know. I don’t know what to make of it yet.’ She handed Hark the folded slips of paper bearing Elodie Dutana’s signature.
‘I wanted to see where you think we should go with this,’ she said.
‘You were going to ask me to marry you, and then you didn’t,’ said Elodie.
‘It’s not quite like that,’ said Daur.
‘Then what are these papers for? This petition?’
‘All right. It is like that. A little like that.’
Elodie took a deep breath.
‘So, it’s Zhukova,’ she said, rather too fast. ‘She turns up, and you rekindle your old romance, and suddenly marrying me doesn’t seem like such a great idea–’
‘Oh, Throne,’ said Daur. ‘Please, listen to me. Zhukova means nothing to me. I knew her years back, in the Hive Defence days on Verghast. She was incredibly young. Incredibly stupid, too. She had a crush on everybody.’
‘Including you?’ Elodie asked.
‘Yes, including me. She likes… ambitious and successful men. Officers. I was in her sights for a while, but it was never reciprocated. It was just interesting to see her again. A reminder of old times, of mutual friends long gone. I was being polite.’
She sniffed.
‘You were really that jealous?’ asked Daur.
‘Yes. I always will be.’
He nodded, half-shrugged.
‘I’m honoured to be the subject of such jealousy,’ he said.
‘What about the petition?’ she asked. ‘Explain that.’
He was silent for a long time.
‘I wanted to ask you to marry me,’ he said at last, quietly. ‘I got the paperwork organised, ready for written permission from Gaunt. Then I realised the timing was bad. You know, because of what it would look like.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Guardsmen who get married on the eve of war, they only do it for one reason.’
‘And what’s that?’ she asked.
‘Because they assume they’re going to die,’ said Daur. ‘They want to make sure their wife has the paperwork to support her claim for a widow’s pension from the Munitorum. They do it so their spouse qualifies for the benefit. They do it because they’re not coming back.’
He looked at her.
‘I want to come back,’ he said, ‘and I didn’t want you to think I wasn’t going to.’
Curth didn’t want to use the intership vox, or send a message through channels. It was too impersonal. She went to Gaunt’s quarters and knocked quietly on the hatch.
When he didn’t answer, she let herself in, intending to leave him a private note asking him to come and see her.
Maddalena was just coming out of the bedchamber. She was naked. When she saw Curth, she didn’t grab clothes or anything to cover herself. She grabbed her weapon and aimed it at the doctor.
Curth yelped and leapt backwards, her hands raised.
Gaunt came in, pulling a sheet around his waist.
‘Put that away,’ he said to Maddalena. ‘It’s Doctor Curth.’
Maddalena lowered the weapon, put it aside, and disappeared, naked and long-limbed, into the bedchamber.
‘This is awkward,’ said Gaunt. ‘Sorry.’
‘Yes. I shouldn’t have come in without permission.’
‘I assume it is important, Ana.’
She nodded.
‘Out of curiosity, how long has this been going on–’
She stopped herself.
‘Forget it,’ she said, closing her eyes and shaking her head. ‘It’s not my business, and it was inappropriate of me to ask.’
Gaunt looked uncomfortable. The scar across his abdominals was old and pale.
‘You can ask,’ he said. ‘We’ve known each other a long time. It’s been going on since the conjunction. I don’t know what it is. It’s just sex.’
‘Oh, good,’ said Curth, without any warmth.
Gaunt frowned. He looked lost for words.
‘Just a hint,’ she said, ‘from a friend. If I was the girl in the bedchamber, overhearing this conversation, I don’t think I’d be happy to hear it was “just sex”.’
‘If you were the girl in the bedchamber–’ Gaunt began.
‘Yes?’
‘Ana, I–’
‘You know what, Ibram. I always thought I might be the girl in the bedchamber one day. Funny that.’
He took a step towards her. The edge of the sheet snagged on the door frame. She held up a hand and turned away.
‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Just get dressed and come down to the infirmary, please. I’ll wait for you there. I came to find you because Dorden is dying. He’s going now. There isn’t much time left for him, and I think he needs you to be there.’
She paused.
‘Actually, I’m not sure he does. He seems quite content. But I think you need you to be there.’
Most of the regiment had gone to the dining halls for supper. Shift bells were ringing. She was walking back along a half-empty main spinal when Blenner saw her.
‘Doctor Curth, has Dorden gone?’ Blenner asked, crossing to her in concern.
‘No. Not yet.’
‘But you’re crying.’
‘Tension. It’s a tension valve, commissar.’
‘Dear lady, I told you I know very well when people are lying,’ he said. ‘It comes with the job.’
‘It’s the truth,’ she said.
‘It’s not the whole truth, though.’
She snorted a laugh, wiping her eyes.
‘Dorden’s going to die. There’s nothing I can do about it. He’s part of this regiment’s soul, and he’s been my mentor and friend and everything else besides since I signed up. I don’t know what I’ll do without him, and that’s only just hitting me. I’ve known for months, and it’s only just making horrible sense now. He’s going to leave us and we’re supposed to carry on.’
Blenner nodded. He patted her shoulder.
‘And that, on top of everything else, made me realise that nothing and no one lasts. Nothing lives forever, no matter how much we want it to. No matter how hard we fight. No matter how patiently we wait. I see that now.’
‘You were… waiting for something?’ he asked.
‘And I waited too long. It’s never going to happen. I understand that now.’
She wiped her eyes again and looked up at him.
‘I have to go to the infirmary, to make sure Dorden’s comfortable. I have to wait for Gaunt there, and brief him. Later on, I am going to need to be very seriously cheered up. I intend to get extremely drunk, Commissar Blenner. I believe you’re the sort of person it’s fun to get drunk with.’
‘My reputation precedes me.’
‘I will require sacra. I trust you’ll be able to procure some?’
He nodded.
‘I should warn you,’ he added, ‘I feel it’s only fair. After a drink or two, I sometimes forget myself, Doctor Curth.’
She looked him dead in the eye.
‘It’s Ana,’ she said.
FIFTEEN
The Marginals
Ship bells rang, and then a siren sounded, alerting every soul on board to the imminent translation.
A judder, a shake that rattled the bones of the ship, and they spat free and clear into realspace. New sirens blasted and a synthetic voice repeated the words ‘Hostile zone, war footing’ over the speaker system.
Spika had brought them to the target three days early.
‘We’re decelerating into the Rimworld Marginals,’ Spika told Gaunt and Eadwine. ‘Navigation has confirmed our realspace position and vector. Sixteen hours of deceleration into the gravimetric plane of this junk system, and then another five as we close on the target location. From this point we are running battle-ready and shields lit; this is a vox-silent phase. I suggest you begin final preparation. You should be ready to deploy from three hours out.’