Ciaphas Cain: Choose Your Enemies

‘Good choice,’ I agreed. Sulla had begun her career as a quartermaster, and retained a talent for logistics which made her positively relish a challenge like this. I rose, with the best show of reluctance I could feign. ‘And I suppose I’d better start rounding our people up. There can’t be too many bars and gambling dens on a void station this size.’ I still intended to make use of as many as possible before we left, though, especially as I now had a perfect excuse to make the rounds.

‘Good luck with that,’ Kasteen said. ‘I’ll send out a general recall message, but there are bound to be plenty who’ve switched off their vox-beads.’

‘Sounds like we’ve a busy night ahead of us,’ I said, which, although it turned out to be true, was as nothing compared to the job awaiting us on Drechia – which, in turn, was to pale into insignificance once the true nature and scale of the threat we were facing eventually became clear.

Editorial Note:

Since, as usual, Cain provides few details of the worlds he visits beyond the occasional complaint about whatever he regards as an inconvenience, the following may prove useful in filling in some of the more egregious gaps in his narrative.

From Interesting Places and Tedious People: A Wanderer’s Waybook by ­Jerval Sekara, 145 M39

The Ironfound subsystem is an interesting anomaly, and perhaps worth a degree of attention if passing through that region of the Imperium, although a prolonged sojourn there can hardly be recommended. The most that can be said for it is that the views of the subsystem primary, known to the locals as Avernus, are undeniably spectacular when seen from the surface of any of the worldlets in its orbit, although conditions on these bodies are sufficiently harsh to discourage all but the hardiest from lingering in the open air. The spectacle is thus better enjoyed from behind the armourcrys of a hostelry on the exterior of whichever hab cluster the discerning wayfarer is patronising, where it can be appreciated in comfort, with a libation of amasec to hand.

That said, the effort of finding one where the surrounding light sources are kept to a minimum will be amply repaid in the clearer view thus afforded, particularly if the subtle scintillations of the ring system are to be fully appreciated. Like the perpetual snows of the worldlets, they acquire a dull red cast from the emanations of Avernus, which appears to flicker12 as it dominates roughly half the sky, creating the uncomfortable illusion that the entire globe is on fire.

Nevertheless, it remains bitterly cold, so much so that the vast majority of the population sensibly remain either in their sealed cities or toiling in the mines which riddle all the inhabited worldlets, relatively safe from the potentially lethal climate.

Which of the dozen or so worlds the passing wayfarer may choose to break their journey on matters little, since in all essential respects they are as dreary as one another.

Two

The few expectations I had of our new deployment were rapidly lived down to. Our shuttle hit the snow-covered surface of Drechia in a gout of steam, which turned slowly into a slick of glass-smooth ice across the landing pad, and I watched the world outside become gradually visible through the thinning mist beyond the viewport. About half my limited field of vision was occupied by the looming bulk of the hab cluster in the distance, beyond the starport periphery, a klom13 or so in height and about thrice that across. In the other direction I could see nothing but snow, gathering in small, gust-driven drifts, smothering the cargo containers stacked in the lee of the starport buildings and blurring the outlines of a squadron of our Chimeras, which had just been offloaded from the previous shuttle down. The huge planet above us hung low to the horizon like a vast blood clot, tinting the whirling snowflakes with its own baleful hue, so that the whole scene reminded me more of a forge surrounded by drifting sparks than the blood-chilling temperatures I knew would be waiting for me the minute the pilot cracked the hatch.

‘I’ll fire up the Salamander.’ Jurgen, my malodorous and indispensable aide, rose from the seat next to mine with as close to alacrity as he ever got. True to form, he’d suffered through the atmospheric portion of our descent with stoic silence and eloquent aroma, and his eagerness to get his boot soles on terra firma was palpable.