Ciaphas Cain: Choose Your Enemies

Thoroughly mollified, Jurgen roared off to terrorise the innocent motorists of downhive Holdvast again, leaving me to make my way over to the landing pad on foot.

As I’d expected, this turned out to be an enclosed space: the air outside was no more breathable than on most Imperial manufacturing worlds, so the air car that had been sent to collect me squatted in the centre of a lift platform large enough to have accommodated a heavy cargo shuttle97 with room to spare, shrunken by its surroundings to the apparent dimensions of a child’s toy. As I approached it, however, my boot soles ringing on the scorched metal mesh of the platform’s surface, it grew to something large enough to have accommodated three people in comfort. The passenger door was open, the ducted fan at each corner of the vehicle humming idly, punctuated by the occasional screech of an inadequately greased bearing, keeping it hovering a dozen centimetres or so above the floor.

‘Good morning.’ I clambered in, with a nod to the chauffeur, isolated behind a transparent partition, but I might as well have saved my breath for all the response I got. Only later did it occur to me that it must have been soundproofed, so that whoever was being ferried about could discuss their affairs, either of state or of a personal nature, without being overheard by the hired help.98 He must have seen me embark, however, for he poked at something the moment I was seated; the door swung closed with a solidly reassuring thunk, the whine of the fans increased in pitch and the whole vehicle lurched into motion. Used to Jurgen’s robust approach to driving I adjusted my balance instinctively, although I have to confess to feeling faintly surprised: I would have thought the governor’s personal chauffeur would have had a far lighter touch on the controls. The air car soon steadied, however, and the roof above our heads began to retract, splitting down the middle as it did so. Thick yellow smog began to curl its way through the widening gap, nothing of the sky beyond being visible – which, to be honest, I suspected was probably the usual state of affairs where Ironfound was concerned.

‘Ciaphas.’ Kasteen’s voice cut into my earpiece. ‘Are you airborne yet?’

‘Pretty much,’ I said, as another sudden lurch shook the air car. ‘Steady on!’

‘Say again?’ Kasteen said, a note of puzzlement entering her voice.

‘Not you, sorry.’ I leaned forward, rapping sharply on the glass, but the chauffeur didn’t respond, merely reaching out for the lever which controlled the pitch of the fan. This time the jerk99 pinned me back in my seat as he lifted the nose and sent us barrelling skyward through the still widening gap. I glanced round, seeing no more of our surroundings than I expected to, vague glimpses of towering structures and hurtling aerial traffic flaring into view before vanishing back into the murk, which glowed orange in the light it was swallowing from waylights, luminators and the occasional burst of flame or electrical discharge. ‘You can tell the governor I’m on my way.’

‘I’d rather you turned back,’ Kasteen said. ‘We’ve got the augurs up and running, and connected to a feed from local traffic control.’

‘Good,’ I said, still not quite grasping what she was driving at. ‘Picking up anything interesting?’

‘You might say that,’ Kasteen said. ‘We’ve got some contacts inbound at a hell of a lick. No transponder signal, so they’re not military, and moving far too fast for civilian traffic.’

‘Missiles?’ I asked, jumping to the obvious conclusion. If they were, and the eldar were hoping to crack the hive with them, any payload they carried had to be so big there was no point in running for cover in any case.

‘Profile looks more like jetbikes,’ Broklaw said. ‘Three of them, moving in formation. Throne alone knows where they could have come from, though.’

‘The eldar ships that followed us in,’ I said. ‘They weren’t after us at all, they were dropping scouts.’

‘Sounds reasonable,’ Kasteen agreed. ‘I never really bought the idea that they’d go to all that trouble just to take out a couple of batteries on one of the orbital docks.’