Ciaphas Cain: Choose Your Enemies

‘Not at the moment, thank you. Let’s try talking first.’ The inquisitor took an outwardly confident step towards the little group of xenos, holstering her weapon and holding up her hand to show it was empty. Apart, that was, from the jokaero digital needler in her ring, which had been the last surprise in the lives of several people and things who had thought her unarmed over the years. ‘They’ve had plenty of opportunity to attack us already, if they wanted to.’

Which was a fair point. I felt my palms tingling again. None of the other eldar we’d seen since our arrival on this Emperor-forsaken iceball would have hesitated for a moment before going for our throats. I stood as close to Jurgen as I could, and kept my weapons in my hands.

‘If they attack the inquisitor, fire at once.’ Pelton’s voice was in my comm-bead, low and urgent, too seasoned a professional to risk alerting the enemy by calling across to me. In the early days of my association with Amberley I might have wondered how he was able to break into a secure Imperial Guard channel, but I’d soon learned that Inquisitorial override codes were even more comprehensive than the ones I had access to through the Commissariat. Now he’d run out of heretics to cleanse, his attention was entirely on watching Amberley’s back – as it should have been, of course.

‘You can count on it,’ I said. She’d probably survive a sudden attack, the displacer field she habitually carried when expecting trouble teleporting her several metres in a random direction in response to a sudden impact or energy burst, but the thing was ancient, and not entirely reliable.61 It would remove her from the line of fire, though, giving Jurgen and me a clear shot at the eldar, which sounded like a positive result to me.

‘Zemmie, go left, try and get behind them. Yanbel, Mott, go the other way. Rakel – just try not to get shot.’

‘Too many ways,’ the psyker cut in, helpful as always, presumably in case it had escaped our notice that we were in the middle of a labyrinth, while the savant and the tech-priest moved to comply with surprising efficiency.62 ‘They’re all tangled, and lead to blood.’

Which didn’t sound all that good to me, but then not a lot she said ever did.63 I shrugged, and took a firmer grasp of my weapons, wondering if I’d be able to parry one of those spear things if it got chucked in my direction, and dismissed the thought at once. If I ever needed to find out I’d be reacting on instinct – too fast for conscious thought, anyway – and the one thing guaranteed to ensure I’d fail would be worry­ing about it beforehand.

‘Stand down, all of you,’ Amberley voxed, with a trace of asperity. ‘This one’s a farseer. He’ll have anticipated every move you could possibly make anyway.’

Personally, I was frakked if I could tell the difference, but xenos of one sort or another were her area of expertise, so I wasn’t about to argue. If she said the one in the particularly elaborate armour was a farseer, then a farseer he was.

‘What’s a farseer?’ Jurgen asked, saving me the bother, although I had little enough need with these people to save face by pretending to knowledge I didn’t have. It certainly wouldn’t have fooled Amberley, and probably wouldn’t fool any of the others either.

‘Weavers of fate, weavers of time,’ Rakel said, in the peculiar sing-song intonation which generally indicated that she’d long since gone off the deep end, and was placidly treading water in a galaxy of her own. ‘Pull the thread, and follow where it leads.’

‘They’re powerful precogs,’ Mott said, apparently relieved at being asked a direct question that didn’t involve too many supplementary bounces down the quincunx of information cluttering up his head. ‘They see a myriad of possible futures unfolding from every second they experience, and try to manipulate events to reach a desired outcome.’

‘So how come they haven’t won the war already?’ Jurgen asked.

Mott’s eyes began to glaze over, and I stepped in hastily to forestall a flood of battlefield analysis, probably going back centuries.

‘Because they haven’t completed their plans yet,’ I said, then thought about the implications of that, which weren’t comforting. ‘And because the soldiers of the Emperor are more than a match for them anyway.’

‘True,’ Jurgen agreed, nodding, and dislodging small flecks of grime from his neck against his shirt collar as he did so. ‘And a las-bolt to the head’ll fell a psyker just the same as anyone else.’

Which wasn’t entirely true, as I knew from personal experience, but it wasn’t a bad principle to keep in mind.