‘Do you have someone in mind for the role?’
Koorland met Wienand’s calculating eyes, too old for her young-looking face, tried to tease out what the woman was thinking. Thane had been in effective charge of Deathwatch operations since Sacratus, and was clearly the best fit for the role, but Koorland knew as soon as the thought arose that Thane, his right hand, was too close to him to be acceptable. The same might also be said of Bohemond and the other commanders of the Last Wall. He realised that even by assessing potential candidates in such a way he was making a political appointment rather than an operational one. His genhanced mind was superbly crafted to multi-task, but being forced to play the High Lords’ game, when his intent on becoming one of them had been to force them to play his, got under the skin.
‘There will be someone proven in place to oversee the next phase of the operation.’
Wienand held his gaze for a moment, then smiled lightly. ‘Agreed, then.’
Everyone suddenly looked relaxed, as though disaster had been averted with a near miss and normal service resumed.
‘Kubik,’ Koorland said, drumming his fingers irritably on the tabletop. ‘How proceeds the Grand Experiment?’
‘Entirely at the discretion of the Senatorum.’
‘He means, does it work?’ said Vangorich.
‘There have been several successful trials on both Martian moons. The investigation of the Techmarines, Abathar and Gadreel, into the failed experiment to teleport the Veridi starbase from Terran orbit was most illuminating. As was Alquist Arouar’s experience handling gravitic technology in the field on Caldera. The tech-priest dominus has been removed from military duties and transferred to the Grand Experiment. It is the conclusion of the project trajectoriae and the diagnostiad that a planetary body could be moved if so required.’
‘Mars, I presume?’ said Vangorich.
‘A logical conclusion, given that it is the only planet with the power capacity and the subspace impellers currently in place.’
‘What of Terra?’ asked Lansung.
‘Impossible. The effect on the Astronomican beacon would be enormous, and inherently unqualifiable.’
That brought a condemned silence upon them all. For several seconds, the weightiness of their responsibilities became untenable. Better several seconds than not at all, Koorland thought, though too little too late all the same. After a moment, Wienand spoke again.
‘What happens when the Deathwatch return to Terra?’
Koorland shook his head. ‘Time is critical. Each kill-team will translate to separate coordinates. Three fleets from Terra will rendezvous with them there.’
‘To what end?’
Koorland was considering how fully to answer when he heard what sounded like a body of men approaching the Library with some haste from the direction of the Cardinals’ Wake. Thane heard it at the same time, then Vangorich, the Assassin turning towards the door.
‘It is early,’ said Koorland. ‘But it could be news from one of the kill-teams.’
He rose from his chair, just as the grand doors were flung inwards and a trilling flock of herald-seraphim burst through.
Mesring, they sang, scattering over the table and circling the data-stacks. Ecclesiarch of the Adeptus Ministorum.
Here to attend.
Here to attend.
Here to attend—
‘Vangorich!’ the Ecclesiarch bellowed, flapping drunkenly through the flock and clattering into the back of a trolleycart, spilling data-slates and scrolls all over the floor tiles. ‘I know you’re in here, you and your cronies. Heretics all!’ Loose wheels and weaker legs rattled along together for a few metres, while the Lords were still scraping back their chairs to obediently join with Koorland in rising.
Laurentis halted the trolleycart’s sideways trundle with one of his three limbs.
Mesring extricated himself from the trolleycart, brandishing an empty vial as though announcing a toast to a vanquished foe’s honour. If Koorland could profess amazement at how some Lords retained all evidence of good living while the billions beneath them starved, it was almost as remarkable how quickly decades of indulgence could be expunged from a man’s body. Gone were the pouches under the Ecclesiarch’s eyes, the blubber that had padded his expansive white robes, the self-reverential glow of overstated piety. In its place were glazed eyes, black teeth made prominent by receding gums, sunken cheeks whose pallor he had for some reason decided to mask with dark green kohl. His beard came out in clumps, stained with blood, wine, and vomit. He tottered on the spot and would have fallen in a second if not for the efforts of an elderly but well-built man in the robes of a senior confessor and a gaggle of sextons and fraters. They looked nervous, embarrassed. Some of them looked afraid.
Why would they be afraid?
‘You look unwell, Mesring,’ said Vangorich, his tone one that Koorland had heard used by medical orderlies in battlefield hospices. ‘Why, you look fit to drop.’
‘Suffer in hell, Vangorich. So slick. So clever.’ The Ecclesiarch paused only to hawk up a gob of blood. ‘I want the cure. I want it. I want it now.’
Koorland looked from one to the other. ‘Vangorich?’
The Assassin shrugged. ‘The pressures of his office are great, lord, the pastoral care of so many billions. The tragedy of the ork moon’s destruction still affects him, I fear.’
‘Lies!’ Mesring staggered through the clutching hands to face Wienand. ‘Tell him! Tell him how you bought me with the cure to his poison, for as long as my life had worth to you.’
Vangorich and Wienand shared a look that gave away nothing and everything.
With a frown that the genetic bequest of Rogal Dorn made furrowing and deep, Koorland turned from them and extended a hand towards the Ecclesiarch. He was a metre taller than Mesring and, in armour, four or five times as broad. He could have enclosed the man’s head in one hand.
‘If you have accusations to make, then I will hear them.’
Mesring shook his head so vigorously against his frail neck that Koorland feared he might snap it, arms aflap, striking Koorland’s gauntlet like an inebriate attacking a wall and waving the diamond vial above his head as though it meant something.
‘Mutants. Poisoners. Heretics.’ Mesring shot them all a glare, his painted face puce with consumption as he pointed finally at Kavalanera. ‘Consorts of witches.’
The knight abyssal appeared to smile but gave no other reaction.
‘Your order is barely a millennium old,’ interrupted Wienand, firmly. ‘Hers is ancient, older by far even than Lord Koorland’s, and has fought alongside the very person of the Emperor. Are the orks not enough? Must we scour the human diaspora for more enemies?’
‘Apostates. Traitors. By the Throne of Ullanor, I am surrounded!’ With a flap of his arms, Mesring parted his attendants and stumbled through them. No sooner had he done so than he spun around again and waggled a shrivelled finger. ‘There will be no corner of Terra that does not feel my fall, you mark me. I know things. The hypocrisy. The lies. The masquerade of the Fists. The death of Vulkan. The empty deviants that call themselves their leaders.’ He signed the aquila and spat blood on the floor. ‘The Emperor abandons us and with just cause.’
He turned away, looked up, and spread his arms wide as though sermonising to a planetary congregation.
‘The people will hear it all! Only by throwing down the heretic and the disbeliever and welcoming the armies of the Beast can they be saved. Praise the Beast!’ he screamed, spittle spraying from his lips, eyes rolling up into his head. ‘All praise the Beast!’