Ciaphas Cain: Choose Your Enemies

Of course speculating about the identity and motive of my would-be assassin took up a good deal of my attention too. My first instinct was to contact Amberley and see if she could throw any light on the matter, but I couldn’t be sure that my vox transmission wouldn’t be monitored by some eavesdropping device concealed aboard the flyer: if whoever was behind the attempt on my life was unaware of my avocation as an occasional, and invariably reluctant, agent of the Inquisition, letting them know about Amberley and her mission wasn’t likely to end well. Besides, I had no doubt that she’d hear of it sooner rather than later, and take whatever steps were necessary to protect herself.101 The would-be assassin had definitely been human, and the eldar weren’t known for using collaborators, so the most likely candidates were the Chaos cult we’d uncovered on Drechia. Why they’d bother trying to assassinate me, only the Emperor knew; but then Chaos worshippers are bonkers by definition, so it’s usually a waste of time even trying to find a rational motive for anything they do.

Inquisitor Vekkman might have some ideas, although I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to talk to him; Amberley clearly thought he should be kept at arm’s length, and that was good enough for me. Probably the best thing I could do would be to consult her at the earliest opportunity, and leave it to her to tell the other inquisitor as much as she deemed appropriate if she thought it would do any good.

Thus musing, and concentrating on manipulating the control column, which I found I had to do quite frequently to avoid drifting away from the course I was attempting to follow, it was some time before I realised that the murk surrounding me was a little less dense than it had been. The running lights of the other flyers and shuttles in the air were shining out more strongly, and the dim outlines of hulls connecting them had become more visible. The spire itself began to appear too, a vast shadow in the shifting yellow fog, gradually taking on a form and solidity which would dwarf mountains.

A short while later I found myself rising above the smog layer entirely, the air clearing with a suddenness which took me completely by surprise,102 and laying the entire spire open to view, rising from the layer of foul, discoloured air like an ancient tree from the foetid waters of a swamp. At this altitude it was scarcely a dozen kilometres across,103 rising to an elegant summit no more than a couple of klom from one side to the other. Looking upwards, I could see innumerable cargo vessels, still too far away to make out as anything other than tiny dots, circulating in a complicated arabesque like a cloud of midges over stagnant water104 as they arrived at and departed from the upper docks. Between there and wherever I was, the sky seethed with other airborne traffic, swarming up and down the length of the spire and ­diving into the cloacal clouds below to reach the bulk of the hive itself. Many were arriving and departing at landing platforms and docking ports clinging to the outside structure, the relatively short trip around the exterior still being a good deal faster than trusting to the hive’s internal transport system.

Though I was no more than about halfway through my leisurely climb, the sky was beginning to darken in colour, taking on the fresh bruise tint that presages the threshold of space. While intellectually I knew it was nowhere near tall enough, I found myself wondering if it actually passed beyond the limits of the atmosphere. It was partially to reassure myself of the ridiculousness of the notion that I glanced outward, towards the far distant gnomon of another spire rising out of the cloud bank, and thus inadvertently saved my own life.

Two air cars, almost identical to my own except for being painted black instead of blue and gold,105 were closing fast from above, and from outside the normal traffic lanes. The other big difference between our respective vehicles was the heavy bolter slung under each of them, centrally mounted, and shooting in my direction.

If you’ve read many of my ramblings, you won’t be surprised to find that my first instinct was to evade. I brought the nose up and fed power to the fans, both of which elicited squeals of protest from the little vehicle’s machine-spirit. I didn’t have time to remonstrate with it, however, opening the throttle to its limits and clawing for height; though hardly proficient at aerial combat, I’d spent enough time in enemy airspace to know just how vital being higher than your opponent could be.

‘Mayday, mayday, mayday,’ I transmitted, just to be on the safe side. ‘This is Commissar Cain, under attack by enemy aircraft.’ If the Lightnings Kasteen had told me about were still anywhere in the vicinity, they’d certainly make short work of the relatively light and slow-moving air cars; if the eldar scouts weren’t already keeping their hands full, of course.