‘Some wine?’ he asked, leaning across the low-slung reception table and proffering the bottle.
‘Thank you, sir, no,’ said Krule, raising his hand. ‘Never while I’m plotting.’
Vangorich smiled and reset the bottle on the table.
It had a yellowing label inscribed in a curling script too obtuse for Vangorich to make out. He doubted it was actually Terran, but it looked old. Rigil Kentaurus perhaps, or Prospero. The Inquisitorial Representative’s suite had suffered a reversion to the minimalist since Wienand’s brief departure. The soft furnishings had been retired, or rearranged for more efficient effect. The priceless artworks and artefacts that had adorned the walls and tabletops were now warehoused in whatever vast silo the Inquisition must employ for such purposes. It was remarkable what a cull at the top could accomplish.
He took a sip from his glass.
Fruity. Woody. It smelled floral, the way he imagined a functioning ecosystem must smell.
‘Where were we?’
‘Mars, sir.’
Vangorich knew that, of course. He had an eidetic memory, a product of extensive training and cognitive therapies, and of certain genetic gifts. The same could have been achieved with implants, but they had their own drawbacks. Keeping track of the byzantine comings and goings of the Officio was not a simple matter of memory capacity in any case. It needed a human touch.
‘How many operatives do we still have there?’
Krule picked up a slate from the several spread over the table between them.
‘Red Haven cadre. Saskine Haast of Temple Vindicare. Mariazet Isolde of Temple Callidus. Clementina Yendl of Temple Vanus. Tybalt of Temple Eversor. And Raznick of the Inquisition if you choose to count him as one of ours.’ He read on a way. ‘It looks like Yendl had managed to cultivate a useful resource on the Mechanicus’ project to replicate the orks’ teleportation technology, before she lost contact. We’re assuming the worst, I presume?’
‘The official line from his supervisor is “reassigned”. Yendl’s looking into it, but it’s not the end of the world. Her pride is a little scratched, but there are other avenues of investigation under way.’
‘Translating a planet,’ said Krule, lowering the slate and gazing out of the window. ‘Damn, that would be a thing to see.’
‘The trial data is all in Yendl’s intelligence log. The so-called Grand Experiment is proving as much a dead end for Kubik as it is for us.’
‘But if it could be made to work…’
Krule let the implications hang. They were so encompassing, so fundamental, that it was difficult to take the necessary step back to see them. Assimilation of the orks’ propulsion technology would strike at the very pillars of Imperial stability. With such a power, the Mechanicus would be able to move anything, anywhere. The Adeptus Astronomica would be no more, the Navis Nobilite cast down at best and persecuted by a vengeful Inquisition at worst. The fleets of Mars would render the Navy and the Chartists obsolete at a stroke.
Schism. On a scale not seen since the Age of Strife.
Vangorich nodded darkly.
‘Merely pointing out, sir,’ said Krule, breaking the sombre mood, ‘if this intelligence log were somehow to find its way onto Sark or Gibran’s desk then you’d have all the Senatorum backing you could want to take Kubik’s head.’
‘If it comes to it, but safer to keep something so inflammatory to ourselves if possible. I gather that Haast and Isolde have managed to successfully integrate into Kubik’s household on Mars. What about when he is here on Terra — habits, and so on?’
Krule picked up another report from the stack.
‘A creature of routine, as you’d expect. Getting to him shouldn’t be an issue. The problem would be the windows available. He doesn’t seem to sleep, keeps to public places by and large, and he’s always accompanied.’ He shrugged, apologetic. ‘They don’t give much consideration to privacy.’
‘What about when he travels?’
‘Mechanicus lighter operating out of Daylight space port. The Mechanicus provides their own pilots and ground crew as well as a skitarii cohort. Knowing the Mechanicus, it’s probably better armed than it looks.’
Vangorich conceded that with a slight tip of his glass.
‘Just how formidable is the Fabricator General, assuming that an example needed to be made?’
‘Assuming?’ Krule sat back, crossing his muscular arms behind his head along the back of the low couch, as comfortable in someone else’s private space as only a man his size could be. ‘I could take him.’
‘Have you ever killed one of the Mechanicus?’
‘You’d know if I had, sir.’
Vangorich smiled.
‘Have you, sir?’ Krule asked.
Vangorich considered a moment. No one else would have dared ask their Grand Master such a question. It mooted the possibility that ‘no’ could be an answer. Another person might have raised it privately out of concern for Vangorich’s professional competence, but not Beast. He knew better.
‘No,’ he admitted.
‘Do you want me to set things in motion?’
Vangorich took a deep breath and shook his head, staring at the slush pile of slates, info-logs, and reports. Selecting a member of the Senatorum Imperialis who had acted with sufficiently witless culpability to warrant death was not difficult. It was, to borrow his favourite Navy aphorism, like launching a torpedo and hitting space. No, the challenge, the surgical art, was to identify that member whose untimely removal would most effect improvement in the rest.
He released the breath. Slowly. Deliberately. He massaged the stiffness from his neck.
‘Udo,’ he said after a few seconds. ‘Tell me about the Lord Commander.’
Krule rummaged for the relevant slate just as a minor earth tremor rattled the pile on the table. Only Vangorich’s cat-like reflexes spared the Inquisition’s carpet a wine stain. The hivequake lingered for a few seconds, and then passed. Vangorich transferred his glass to the other hand and lapped wine from his wrist, then stood and moved to the window. An orange glare lit his face. A hab-block was falling away from the Palace skyline, gutted by the ignited gases that were spraying from its exposed, ancient piping. Even through the reinforced armourglass, Vangorich could hear screaming. The long, hapless whine of tocsins spread slowly across the Imperial Palace.
Something had to be done.
He turned to find Krule checking a security alert on his wrist chrono. Krule silenced the audio sounder, then drew a bulky plasma pistol from the concealed holster inside his jacket. He rose quickly and quietly from his chair, gestured to Vangorich to take cover behind the table, and moved out of line from the door, pistol raised and trained.
Doing as he was bidden, Vangorich dropped onto one knee.
He hooked one arm over the table, partially to shelter his face behind it if need be, and pulled the silenced, slender-barrelled hellpistol he carried from his boot. He took aim at the door and glanced at the access panel on the wall beside it. An amber light was pulsing across the display, left to right and occasionally spiking in the middle, like a heart rate monitor. An intruder should have triggered a red alarm. Amber meant that someone with Inquisitorial clearance had entered the suite, effectively placing the automatic weapon turrets and intruder denial systems built into every staircase and corner space into a temporary ‘standby’ posture. Vangorich’s office had all the specifications. The intruder had ninety seconds to provide the correct form of physical identification and the required codes to one of those access panels before things started to get anxious.