Ciaphas Cain: Choose Your Enemies

‘Of course not,’ Fulcher said, and a hololith display flickered into life above the conference table, showing a tactical map not startlingly different to the one I’d already looked at back at our own headquarters with Kasteen and Broklaw. The same checkpoints had been highlighted, with icons indicating the presence of a planetary defence force unit or two at each, although I wasn’t yet sufficiently familiar with the local conventions to be able to tell much about them. For all I could deduce, it could have been anything from a crack squad of Tempestus Scions to a handful of tertiary reservists armed with a carving knife tied to a broom handle.115

Porten indicated the display. ‘These are the lowest levels of the hive we keep permanently manned posts on,’ he said, ‘alongside the prefects.116 But Clarys would be able to fill you in on their resources down there better than I could.’

Osric turned towards me, then back to Amberley, apparently unable to decide which of us most needed to know whatever information he had to impart, before settling for addressing the air roughly equidistant between the two of us, which resulted in the slightly surreal spectacle of one of the most senior Imperial officials on Ironfound apparently conversing earnestly with a potted plant. ‘In her absence, perhaps you’ll allow me.’ Which seemed fair enough, as she reported to him in any case, so he probably had at least a rough idea of what was going on down there. ‘Essentially the prefects are there to regulate traffic flow through the gates, and prevent contraband getting through in either direction.’

And good luck with that, if any of my childhood memories could be relied on, although perhaps they couldn’t; certainly in the hive I used to call home, a steady stream of illicit merchandise flowed across the dividing line both uphive and down. People, too.

‘I remember them,’ Amberley said. ‘They didn’t seem terribly thorough.’

Osric shrugged. ‘They do what they can. But they’re overworked and under-resourced.’

‘And interfering too much with the unofficial economy isn’t going to work out too well for anyone,’ I added, just to show I understood how things were. If the underhivers could get what they wanted by tacitly tolerated illicit means, everyone made a bit of money, and the governor wouldn’t have to deal with any insurrections. Come to that, goods and services coming up from below would improve the official tithing figures as well, leaving that bit more to be skimmed by Fulcher and his cronies. (I was pretty sure he would have some, as in my experience everyone in a position of power has a few. How else are they going to feel important?)

I turned back to Porten. ‘You said permanently manned,’ I said. ‘Do you ever go lower?’

The general nodded, his extravagant moustache oscillating wildly.

‘We send a squad or two down a few levels every couple of days to do a quick sweep. Nothing major, just a general reminder for the scofflaws downgate that we’re not that far away, so they’d better mind their manners.’

‘Good,’ I said. If the eldar really were on the move, one of the defence force patrols would be the first to encounter them, giving us some warning of the xenos’ approach. ‘Any of them come across unusual activity in the sub levels?’

Porten shook his head. ‘Not really. Although there seem to be more scavvies on the move than usual, coming up from the sump.’

‘Saying what?’ I asked, and Porten shook his head again.

‘Nothing. Not to our troopers, anyway.’ Which was hardly surprising, since the average underhiver’s response to seeing a large group of people carrying guns is to move rapidly in the general direction of away. Unless they’ve got more of both, in which case they’ll try to take the weapons for themselves, which generally doesn’t end well for anyone involved. All of which goes double for any incursion by the up-hive authorities.

I turned back to Osric. ‘Do you have any informants down there reporting back to your office?’

‘Not as such,’ he replied, after a moment’s hesitation. ‘Clarys has a network, of course, and she passes on anything she thinks might be of interest to the enforcers, but that’s not an awful lot, to be honest. Most of what she gathers is of purely local interest.’117

‘So you haven’t heard anything which might indicate whether or not the eldar are on the move yet either,’ I said, and Osric shook his head, in a faintly sullen manner.

‘I have a few local informants of my own,’ Amberley said, to everyone’s evident surprise except mine. ‘They’re based in the spire, but they have dealings with the underhive on a regular basis, so I’m inclined to give their reports a reasonable amount of credence. According to them, a lot more people than usual are moving upwards from the lowest levels, though no one’s sure why. Some of them are talking about ghosts and daemons in the sump, or hivesteaders going missing. No one’s heard anything from Ebon Flow in over a week, and no one’s come back from there after going to take a look either.’