'Wouldn't we have been informed if the governor was coming?' I asked, and Mira shrugged, which I always found agreeably diverting.
'Not necessarily,' she said, 'but I doubt it. He's probably running round in little circles back on Serendipita, making sure any obvious signs of corruption or misgovernment are tidied away before the Astartes arrive.' Then she smiled, in a self-deprecating fashion which quite suited her. 'It's what I'd do.'
'But he put his personal shuttle at the disposal of the delegation,' I said. 'How very generous of him.'
Mira smiled again, either at my apparent naivety, or the thinly veiled sarcasm. 'Generosity has nothing to do with it,' she said. 'It shows he's taking the Reclaimers seriously, and willing to get involved, but keeps him conveniently distanced from any decisions made here which might cause trouble at home.' Her voice held a faintly admiring edge. 'He plays the game well.'
'Let's hope you get the chance to tell him that, before the genestealers eat his system out from the inside,' I said. We were certainly off to a good start, but my innate pessimism, forged in the crucible of far too many unpleasant surprises just when we thought we'd got on top of things, was refusing to let go of the conviction that the situation was hardly likely to remain as straightforward as it had been.
Jurgen nodded. 'Doesn't do to turn your back on them,' he said, no doubt mindful of our experiences on Keffia.
'I don't imagine we'll be doing that,' Mira said.
'Certainly not,' I agreed. A chill mist was beginning to drift against the armourcrys by now, as the thickening atmosphere in the docking bay was chilled to the temperature of space, and a barely perceptible thrumming was growing audible, as the air became dense enough to transmit the sound of the pumps feeding it into the cavernous chamber. I began to lead the way towards the staircase leading down to the airlock. 'Our first priority has to be assessing the threat, and the best way to combat it with the assets we have in-system.' I'd timed it nicely, the outer doors of the airlock grinding open to admit the diminishing howl of the shuttle's engines[82], as the pilot powered them down.
'Commissar. Commendably prompt,' Gries rumbled, as the boarding ramp began to descend. If he was surprised to see Mira with me, his helmet hid it, and he acknowledged her presence with a simple 'Envoy.'
'Captain,' she responded, with a perfunctory curtsey. 'Whose company are we to expect the pleasure of?'
Pleasure wasn't exactly the thing I was anticipating, I must admit. I wanted to talk to the real soldiers among the delegation, which basically meant the Imperial Guard officers, along with the PDF and SDF representatives for their local knowledge. I was already certain that the vast majority would turn out to be Administratum drones and members of the local aristocracy instead, though, keener to boost their position by association with the Astartes than to make any meaningful contribution to the defence of the system.
Gries evidently felt much the same way, judging by the curtness of his reply. 'Omnissiah knows,' he said. 'Or how many of them will have something relevant to say.'
'Then if I may make a suggestion,' Mira said brightly, 'perhaps Ciaphas should just liaise between you and the military people, like he's supposed to, while I keep the hangers-on out of the way. I've nothing practical to contribute to the strategic planning in any case, but I do know how to talk to politicians without yawning.'
'That would be helpful,' Gries agreed, and I nodded, concealing my surprise as best I could.
'It would indeed,' I concurred, wondering what would be in it for her, and deciding that right now I didn't really care. The important thing was to stop Serendipita from going the way of her home world, and too many others along the Eastern Arm for comfort.
'Good.' Mira smiled at me. 'Then let's try to look as though they're all welcome, shall we?'
Editorial Note:
As usual, though he mentions a few of the astrographic details in passing, Cain is vague at best about conditions in the Serendipita System. Accordingly, I've inserted the following extract here, in the hope that it may make things a little clearer.
From Interesting Places and Tedious People: A Wanderer's Waybook, by Jerval Sekara, 145.M39.
SERENDIPITA IS WELL named, for it does indeed come as a delightful surprise to the warp-weary traveller; a small constellation of habitable worlds, though, it must be said, with varying degrees of comfort, orbiting a single gas giant of quite prodigious size. So large, indeed, that it radiates light and warmth in the manner of a small star[83], rendering its half-dozen planet-sized moons tolerable for the hardy folk who make their homes here. The most favoured of these is Serendipita itself, which enjoys a temperate climate, abundant oceans and two small polar caps. Rendered the capital world of the system by virtue of supporting the bulk of its population, and having been the first orb settled by humanity, it's a pleasant enough sphere to tempt even the most jaded wayfarer into lingering for a while.
Should its charms pall, however, the other moons of this singular primary are also worth visiting, with the exception of Tarwen, the industrial centre of this curious conglomeration of worlds. Tarwen is as aesthetically unpleasing as its inhabitants, who, like their home, are grimy and dour, and the best that can be said for the place is that its existence allows Serendipita itself to remain charmingly unspoilt, save for those little comforts of civilisation which only seem important when unobtainable. In a similar fashion, much of the agriculture supporting the far-flung population is relegated to other moons, although Serendipita does boast some tolerably picturesque rural hinterlands serving her larger cities.
It should be noted in passing that other centres of population exist in the wider stellar system, but contain nothing of interest, being devoted entirely to mining, commerce or other such occupations of the artisan class, while a remarkable number of ne'er-do-wells continually ply the magnificent ring system and innumerable lesser moons around Serendipita in search of exploitable resources and other plunder; not the least of which are the ramshackle vessels generally employed in this pursuit, and which come to grief about as often as one might expect given the inordinate number of hazards to navigation in so thick a belt of debris. From the surface of the habitable worlds, however, the ring is most notable for the breathtaking spectacle it affords those seeking diversion after nightfall.
FIFTEEN
OVER THE NEXT few days, I must confess, I had good reason to be thankful for Mira's intervention. The delegation had proven to be every bit as overrun with time-serving bureaucrats, Emperor-bothering ecclesiarchs and inbred imbeciles from the local aristocracy as I'd feared, far too many of whom wanted their picts taken with honest-to-Emperor Astartes, the Hero of Perlia, or both, to keep my temper in check without the considerable exertion of willpower. Fortunately, the prospect of having to ingratiate themselves with Jurgen in order to gain access to me deterred all but the most persistent, and the few who persevered had no more luck getting past him than anyone else I didn't want to see; but it couldn't be denied that Mira was doing an excellent job of keeping the majority occupied, and I was duly grateful. Quite what she did with them I had no idea, and cared even less, but it was bound to have fewer repercussions than my favoured option of shoving the lot of them out of the nearest airlock and leaving them to walk home.
At any event, her willingness to suffer fools gladly, or at least to tolerate them without giving way to the impulse to violence, left the way clear for me to assess the threat with the aid of General Torven, the overall C-in-C[84] of the Guard units garrisoning the system against the possibility of an attack by the orks we'd run into on our way here, Planetary Marshal Kregeen, his opposite number in the local PDF (who, to my relieved surprise, seemed both to take her responsibilities seriously, and understand them, neither of which could normally be relied on when, as here, the senior command staff of the local standing army was drawn from the ranks of the local aristocracy), and Admiral Duque, whose stewardship of the SDF fleet may have lacked the swashbuckling panache of a Horatio Bugler[85], but seemed solidly competent at least. All of them had brought aides, adjutants and advisors with them, of course, but the ones who sat in on the meetings generally had the good sense to keep quiet unless they had something useful to contribute, and I must say we made pretty good progress between us. Gries was, of course, far too busy directing the hunt for the space hulk to participate himself, but that was the whole point of my liaison job, and I made sure he had a cogent summary of our deliberations at the end of every session.
82
Which implies that both sets of doors were being left open, to expedite the disembarkation of the passengers: not the safest thing to do, but, as previously noted, Space Marines tend not to be too concerned at the possibility of exposure to vacuum.
83
Unlikely as this may sound Sekara isn't exaggerating. According to Mott, my savant, such protostars are hardly uncommon in the galaxy, although it's extremely unusual to find one circled by even one habitable world, let alone the multiplicity of them described in this account.
85
An Imperial Navy officer of some renown in the Damocles Gulf. Although he and Cain were both involved in the Adumbria incident of 937.M41, there's no evidence that they ever met face to face.