Ciaphas Cain: Choose Your Enemies

‘Possibly,’ Proktor said, dismissing the tangle of string with an abrupt gesture which elicited a whine of dismay from the onlooking tech-priest, unless it was just a worn servo somewhere beneath his robe. This revealed more threads, running from mineheads and storage facilities to wrap the globe in a spider web of intertwining lines. ‘These are the approach and retreat vectors we can most reliably extrapolate from the data we were given.’ Which, to my immense lack of surprise, were almost all from actions carried out by the 597th – although, to be fair, a few of the local defence force’s skirmishes were also marked, for the most part in locations where the relatively open ground would have made the raiders’ incoming and outgoing courses fairly obvious.

‘Most of those could just as easily have entered the atmosphere below the horizon,’ Broklaw pointed out, an instant before I could.

Kasteen nodded. ‘A lot of them probably did. But there are a few places where the vectors intersect that might be worth a look.’

‘There are.’ Proktor obligingly highlighted them, to Kasteen’s obvious and pleased surprise. ‘Though none of them seem particularly accessible.’

‘Which would be the point, I imagine,’ Broklaw commented dryly. ‘They’re hardly going to put the end of a warp tunnel in the middle of the main hab zone, are they?’

‘I imagine the tunnel would have predated Imperial settlement,’ Proktor said, with considerable understatement.

‘Either way, we’ll need to check them out,’ Kasteen said, with a jaundiced look at the hololith. ‘Although what we’re actually looking for, Throne alone knows.’ She glanced in my direction. ‘Ciaphas?’

‘Haven’t a clue,’ I admitted, which, to be honest, was fine by me. I dredged my memory, trying to come up with some nugget of information Amberley might have imparted over the years, but came up blank. ‘I suppose anything that might look a bit eldary.’

‘Eldary?’ she repeated, as though it just might make sense if she heard it often enough. ‘Is that even a word?’

‘If it isn’t, it’ll just have to do until a proper one comes along,’ I said. I looked at the half a dozen or so locations Proktor had highlighted, finding each one less promising than the last. Nothing but snow, ice and crevasses which could swallow a Chimera whole without pausing to belch afterwards. A playground for the Valhallans, in other words: if we asked for volunteers we’d be trampled in the rush. I glanced hopefully at Proktor. ‘None of these sites figure in the local folklore, I suppose?’

‘Folklore?’ If anything he looked even more taken aback than Kasteen had at my impromptu coinage of ‘eldary.’ ‘Why would they?’

‘Because in my experience, anything tainted by xenos or the warp leaves traces of some kind,’ I said, as kindly as I could. It wasn’t Proktor’s fault he was a civilian, and concomitantly inexperienced in the ways of the galaxy. ‘Even if it’s as tenuous as ghost stories.’

‘I see what you mean.’ He nodded judiciously. ‘Things like the snow walkers.’

‘Probably,’ I said, having no idea what snow walkers were, but pretty much every world had its bogeymen and they all seemed to be pretty much alike. ‘Things people only ever catch a glimpse of, usually when the weather’s really bad, or they’ve had a drink or two?’

‘That’s right,’ Proktor confirmed. ‘Shadowy figures made of snowflakes that hide in the blizzards. Most people think they’re just thicker flurries and overactive imaginations.’

‘Most people are probably right,’ Kasteen said, dismissing the matter. ‘But they don’t sound particularly eldary,’ at which she smiled wryly in my direction, ‘in any case.’

‘They don’t,’ Broklaw agreed. He turned to Proktor. ‘But are any of these sites associated with the stories at all?’

‘Not to my knowledge,’ Proktor said. He thought for a moment. ‘But I’ll have someone look into it. Just in case.’

‘Thank you.’ Kasteen returned her attention to the hololith. ‘We’ll just have to send someone out to take a look then.’

‘Several someones,’ I said, considering the matter. ‘And it’ll take some time. They’re pretty widespread.’

‘That they are,’ Kasteen agreed. ‘And the more troopers we send out, the less able we are to defend the mines. I don’t want to weaken our defences any more than we can help, especially after that last attack.’

‘Neither do I,’ I agreed. The fight had been long and bloody, the eldar attacking with their largest force yet, and if it hadn’t been for the Valhallans’ innate ability to take full advantage of the hostile terrain it could easily have gone the other way; even as it was it had been a damnably close run thing. ‘I’m in no hurry to tangle with those Dreadnoughts again.’ They’d been hellishly fast and agile, far more so than their Imperial counterparts. Going by what I’d seen – from as far away as possible – they might even have outclassed the ones the t’au use, which was a sobering thought indeed.