‘A sensible move,’ replied Sindre. ‘The Archenemy is close, and it is listening. In fact, there is some consternation among upper staff that details of your extended mission have not yet been supplied. They are awaiting your superior’s full report.’
‘Which he will deliver in person for the same reasons of security,’ said Rawne.
‘We, however, made an assumption,’ said Sindre. ‘If Gaunt is alive after all, then the prisoner might be as well, etcetera, etcetera…’ Sindre shrugged and smiled. He seemed to smile a lot. ‘So,’ he said, ‘on the presumption he was, preparations for immediate handover and securement were made and authorised in advance. Just in case the animal had survived.’
‘Move aside,’ said Viktor Hark. He entered the brig chamber, pushing past Sindre’s security detail. They glared at him at first, then stood out of his path.
‘Gaunt has signed off, Rawne,’ said Hark. ‘He’s had assurances.’
‘Let me see,’ said Rawne.
Hark handed him a data-slate. Rawne read it carefully.
‘You know they’re just going to kill him,’ said Varl.
‘Varl…’ Hark growled.
‘Oh, but they are,’ said Varl. ‘He’s no use any more. He’s done what he was supposed to do. They won’t let him live, not a thing like him. They’ll burn him.’
Sindre smiled again. The Suicide Kings began to feel his smile was quite as alarming as Rawne’s reasonable tone.
‘Is that sympathy I hear?’ he asked. ‘One of your men sympathising with the fate of an Archenemy devil? If security is such a concern to you, Major Rawne, I would look to my own quickly.’
‘The prisoner is an asset,’ said Rawne. ‘That’s all my man here is worried about.’
‘Of course he is,’ said Sindre. ‘On that we agree. We’re not going to execute him. Not yet, anyway. Eventually, of course. But the ordos believes there is a great deal more that may be extracted from him. He has been cooperative so far, after all. He will be interviewed and examined extensively, for however long that takes. Whatever other truths he contains, they will be learned.’
‘Bring him out,’ said Rawne.
Varl stood back with a shake of his head. Bonin, Brostin, Cardass and Oysten walked back to the cell, and threw the bolts. After a few minutes spent running the standard body search, they brought Mabbon Etogaur out in shackles. With the Suicide Kings around him, Mabbon shuffled his way over to Rawne’s side.
Sindre looked at him with considerable distaste.
‘Storm troop,’ Sindre called out. ‘Take possession of the prisoner and prepare to move. Double file guard. Watch his every move.’
The Urdeshi storm troopers moved forwards.
‘S Company, Tanith First,’ said Sindre, ‘you are relieved of duty. Your vigilance and effort is appreciated.’
‘We stand relieved,’ replied Rawne.
The Urdeshi moved Mabbon towards the hatch. It was slow going because his stride was so abbreviated by the shackles.
‘Hey!’
They paused, and Sindre looked back. Varl had gone into the etogaur’s cell and reappeared holding a sheaf of cheap, tatty pamphlets and chapbooks.
‘These belong to him,’ he said, holding them out.
Interrogator Sindre took the pamphlets and flicked through them.
‘Trancemissionary texts,’ he mused, ‘and a copy of The Spheres of Longing.’
‘He reads them,’ said Varl.
Sindre handed them back.
‘No reading material is permitted,’ he said.
‘But they belong to him.’
‘Nothing belongs to him, trooper,’ said Sindre. ‘No rights, no possessions. And besides, he will have no need for reading matter. He will be… busy talking.’
Varl glanced at Rawne, and Rawne quietly shook his head. At the hatch, surrounded by the impassive storm troopers, Mabbon looked back over his shoulder and nodded very slightly to Varl.
‘You… you watch him,’ said Varl. ‘He’s a sly one, that pheguth.’
‘You take care of yourself, Sergeant Varl,’ said Mabbon. ‘We won’t meet again.’
‘You never know,’ said Varl.
‘I think I do,’ said Mabbon.
‘That’s enough. No talking,’ Sindre snapped at Mabbon. ‘Move.’
The storm troopers led him away.
Luna Fazekiel led Baskevyl and Kolea to the hatch of hold ninety.
‘Our visitors,’ she remarked sidelong.
A man in the plain, dark uniform of the Astra Militarum intelligence service was waiting for them, accompanied by a cowled representative of the Adeptus Mechanicus and a tall woman in a long storm coat who could only be from the ordos. A gang of Mechanicus servitors and several other aides and assistants waited in the corridor behind them, as well as intelligence service soldiers with plasma weapons. Elam, and a squad from his company, blocked them from the hatch door.
‘Ma’am,’ said Elam as the trio approached.
‘Are you in charge here?’ the intelligence officer asked Fazekiel. He was well made and handsome, with thick, dark hair, cut close, and greying at the temples.
‘We have been kept waiting,’ said the female inquisitor. ‘You have the authority to open this hold?’
As they had approached, Kolea had been struck by the woman’s appearance. She was tall and slender, and her head, with its shaved scalp, had the most feline, high-cheekboned profile he had seen on a human. She possessed the sort of attenuated, sculptural beauty he imagined of the fabled aeldari.
But as she turned to regard them, he saw it was reconstruction work. The entire upper part of her head that had been facing away from them was gone, from the philtrum up, replaced by intricate silver and gold augmetics, fashioned like some master-crafted weapon. Her mouth was real, and her eyes, presumably also real, gleamed in the complex golden sockets of her face. She had been rebuilt, and the surgeons and augmeticists had only been able to save the lower part of her face. Even that, Kolea fancied, was just a careful copy of what had once existed. The augmetic portion had obviously been destroyed beyond hope of reconstruction. It shocked him, and fascinated him. He was alarmed to realise that he almost found the intricate golden workings of her visage more beautiful than the perfect skin of her jaw.
‘My apologies,’ said Fazekiel. ‘Disembarkation after a long journey is a demanding process. We have authority to break the seals. I am Commissar Fazekiel. This is Major Kolea, and Major Baskevyl.’
‘Colonel Grae,’ said the intelligence officer. ‘With me, Versenginseer Lohl Etruin of the Adeptus Mechanicus and Sheeva Laksheema of the Ordo Xenos.’
The cowled adept twitched an actuator wand, and a small, plump woman stepped forwards from the entourage. She wore a simple robe and tabard, and her hair was tight curls of silver. She presented Fazekiel with a thick sheaf of papers.
‘Documentation for the receiver party,’ she said, looking up at Fazekiel. ‘It lists and accredits all personnel present, including the servitor crew and the savants.’
‘You are?’ asked Fazekiel.
‘My lead savant, Onabel,’ said Laksheema, ‘and her identity is not pertinent to this discussion. Please explain, I am concerned that the hold seal has been tampered with.’
‘We ran into trouble, ma’am,’ said Kolea.
‘The ship was boarded. We fought them off,’ said Fazekiel. ‘However, we were obliged to open and search all the ship compartments to ensure that no agents of the foe remained in hiding.’
‘Who opened it?’ asked Laksheema.