‘I did,’ said Baskevyl. ‘It was opened on my command.’
The cowled adept made a small, clicking, buzzing sound. Laksheema nodded.
‘I agree, Etriun,’ she said. She looked at Baskevyl. ‘Operational orders stated that the material recovered from Salvation’s Reach should remain sealed for the return voyage. There is potential danger and hazard to the untrained and uninformed.’
‘Operational orders that are now over ten years old,’ said Kolea.
‘As my colleague explained, ma’am,’ said Baskevyl, ‘circumstances changed. I thought it better to risk the potential hazard rather than risk even greater danger. A field decision.’
Laksheema stared at him. ‘A field decision,’ she said. ‘How very Astra Militarum. You are Baskevyl?’
‘Major Braden Baskevyl, Tanith First, ma’am.’
‘But you are Belladon born.’
‘My insignia gives me away,’ he replied, lightly.
‘No, your accent. When you opened the hold, Baskevyl, what did you find?’
‘Disruption to the cargo. Some contents shifted and spilled. I checked the area for signs of intruders, found none, and so immediately resealed the hold.’
‘Because?’ Laksheema asked.
‘Operational orders, ma’am,’ said Baskevyl.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Something else. I see it in your manner.’
Baskevyl glanced at Kolea.
‘One of the crates had spilled in a way I could not explain. Our asset had suggested that this particular set of items constitute perhaps the most valuable artefacts recovered during the raid. I touched nothing. I left them where they were and resealed the hold.’
The adept buzzed and warbled quietly again.
‘Indeed,’ Laksheema nodded. ‘Define “in a way I could not explain”, please, major.’
‘The crate contained stone tiles or tablets, ma’am,’ said Baskevyl, uncomfortably. ‘They had fallen, but arranged themselves in rows.’
‘Rows?’ echoed Grae.
Baskevyl gestured, to explain.
‘Perfect rows, sir,’ he said. ‘Perfectly aligned. It seemed to me very unlikely that they could just land like that.’
‘And you left them?’ asked Laksheema.
‘Yes.’
‘How did it make you feel?’ asked the stocky little savant.
‘Feel?’ replied Baskevyl. ‘I… I don’t know… My inclination was to pick them up, but I felt that was unwise.’
‘Anything else of note occur during the voyage?’ asked Grae.
‘Plenty,’ said Kolea. ‘It was a busy trip.’
‘That you’d like to relate, I mean,’ said Grae.
Baskevyl glanced at Kolea. Neither wanted to be the one to open the can of worms about the eagle stones and the voice. Besides, it was above their grade now, and part of the official mission report document.
‘There is a great deal you are not telling us, isn’t there?’ asked the inquisitor.
‘The mission report is long, complex and classified,’ said Baskevyl.
‘The details can’t circulate until the report has been presented to high command and the warmaster, and validated by them,’ said Kolea.
‘And the ordos do not warrant inclusion in that list?’ asked Laksheema.
‘It’s a matter of Militarum protocol–’ Baskevyl began.
‘Shall I tell you what I think of protocol?’ asked the inquisitor.
‘Our commanding officer is on his way right now to deliver the full report to staff,’ said Fazekiel quickly. ‘He’s presenting it in person. The details were considered too sensitive to commit to signal or other form that could be intercepted.’
‘This is… Gaunt?’ asked Laksheema.
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘His reputation precedes him,’ remarked Grae.
‘Does it, sir?’ asked Kolea.
‘It does, major,’ said the intelligence officer. ‘Amplified considerably by death, which of course now proves to be incorrect. He has made quite a name for himself, posthumously. It is rare a man turns up alive to appreciate that.’
‘I’m sure the colonel-commissar will deliver the report in full to you too,’ said Fazekiel.
‘Of course he will,’ said Laksheema. ‘The warmaster has drawn up our working group to examine and identify the materials gathered. Full accounts must be collated from all involved, and all who had contact, as well as a detailed consideration of any events surrounding the mission that may be relevant.’
She looked at Kolea.
‘Even those which may not appear to the layman to be relevant,’ she added.
‘We will need full lists of everyone who had any contact with the items during recovery and storage,’ said Grae. ‘Anyone who was… exposed.’
Kolea nodded. ‘That’s quite a large number of personnel, sir.’
‘They will all be interviewed,’ said Grae.
The adept whirred.
‘Etruin asks who collated and indexed the material for the manifest.’
‘I did,’ said Fazekiel.
Laksheema nodded.
‘The manifest is very thorough. You have a keen preoccupation with detail, Commissar Fazekiel.’
‘I imagine that’s why Gaunt charged me with the duty, ma’am,’ Fazekiel replied.
‘You are methodical,’ Laksheema mused. ‘Obsessive compulsive. Has the condition been diagnosed and peer-reviewed?’
‘Has it… what?’ asked Fazekiel.
‘Shall we open the hatch?’ suggested Baskevyl. ‘You can take charge of it. We’ll be glad to see the back of this stuff.’
I know I will, thought Kolea.
A long column of cargo-8 trucks left the staging gates of plating dock eight and followed the old streets down the hill into Eltath. The rain had stopped, and the skies were puzzle-grey. Rainwater had collected in the potholes and ruts pitting the rockcrete roads, and the big wheels of the passing trucks sprayed it up in sheets.
The buildings of the quarter were old, and looked derelict. They had once been the headquarters and storehouses of merchants and shipping guilds, but war had emptied them long before, and they stood silent and often boarded. Time and weather had robbed some of roof tiles, and in places, there were vacant lots where the neighbouring buildings were propped with girder braces to prevent them slumping sideways into the mounds of rubble. The rubble was overgrown with lichen and creeper weeds. These were the sites of buildings lost to shelling and air raids. The spaces they left in the street frontages were like gaps in a row of teeth.
The motor column was carrying the first of the Tanith to their assigned billets. Tona Criid rode in the cab of the lead vehicle. She peered at the dismal buildings as they rumbled past.
‘When did the war here end?’ she asked.
‘The war hasn’t ended,’ replied the Urdeshi pool driver.
‘No, I mean the last war?’
‘Which last war?’ he asked, unhelpfully. He glanced at her. ‘Urdesh has been at war for decades. Conquest, occupation, liberation, reconquest. The whole system, contested since forever. One war followed by another, followed by another.’
‘But you endure?’ she asked.
‘What choice have we got? This is our world.’
Criid thought about that.
‘Forgive me for asking,’ said the driver after a while, his eyes on the road, ‘you’ve come here to fight, and you don’t know what the war is?’
‘That’s fairly normal,’ said Criid. ‘We just go where we’re sent, and we fight. Anyway, it’s the same war. The same war, everywhere.’
‘True, I suppose,’ the man replied.
They drove further through the old quarter. The streets were as lifeless as before. Criid began to notice material strung across the streets from building to building, like processional bunting. But it was sheets, carpets, old faded curtains, and other large stretches of canvas that hung limply in the damp air. The sheets hung so low in places, they brushed the tops of the moving trucks.