Ciaphas Cain: Choose Your Enemies

‘I take it that’s a settlement close to where you discovered the portal,’ I said, and Amberley nodded.

‘The closest,’ she said. ‘They were armed, and well organised by underhive standards, perfectly capable of taking care of themselves. If they’ve gone quiet, it doesn’t look good.’

‘No,’ I agreed, ‘it doesn’t.’ I was beginning to get a distinct sinking feeling about this. ‘I suppose we’ll have to send someone down there to recon.’ And I was pretty sure I knew who was going to get the job. After all, Amberley was well aware of my affinity for places like that. ‘And the sooner the better.’

Sure enough, she was smiling at me. ‘My thoughts exactly,’ she agreed.

Fourteen

It wasn’t quite as cut and dried as all that, of course; I still had to oversee the implementation of a coherent defensive strategy, which basically boiled down to putting as many of the Ironfound Defence Force troopers as possible around the gates leading to the underhive, as they would be the primary choke points on an eldar advance into the main part of the complex. It would also give us a reasonable number of troops in reserve, which we could use to blockade the narrower tunnels lower down, and, with any luck, prevent the pointy-ears from even getting as far as the gates – if we could locate them quickly enough.

The approaching fleet was another matter entirely, and the closer it got to Ironfound, the more attractive a recon expedition into the bowels of the underhive began to look. At least it was an environment I knew and could use to my advantage; I was pretty sure if push came to shove I’d be able to evade the eldar a lot more easily down there than they’d be able to evade me. At which point a disquieting little voice at the back of my head reminded me that I’d thought the same thing on Drechia, and that hadn’t exactly ended well.

‘I think we’re done, then,’ Fulcher said at long last, and I rose with the others, wondering for the first time since I got here how I was going to get back. Fulcher might offer me the use of another air car, I supposed, but under the circumstances I wasn’t that keen on trusting my safety to another member of his household. I could have summoned Jurgen, of course, but with so much vertical distance to travel it would take him a good couple of hours to get here, even at the pace he usually drove. But before I could reach a decision the governor stopped talking for a moment, listening to something in his vox-bead, then turned back to me. ‘Commissar, would you mind staying a few more minutes? Defroy has some information you might find of interest.’

‘By all means,’ I said, resuming my seat, and being pleasantly surprised to find Amberley settling into the one next to me which had lately been vacated by the arbitrator. Fulcher looked at her in a faintly quizzical manner, but, probably wisely,118 let it go.

‘I’d like a word with you as well,’ Amberley said, while everyone else filed out, trying not to look as though they were hoping for some clue as to what she might want with me. ‘I’ll fly you back, and we can talk on the way.’

‘Fine with me,’ I agreed, as the last of the wannabe eavesdroppers left the room with curious backward glances.

‘Commissar.’ Defroy pushed his way through the final stragglers, and closed the door on them with the kind of firm politeness Jurgen generally used to keep people I couldn’t be bothered to deal with119 out of my office. ‘We’ve found something which may be significant.’ He laid a data-slate on the table in front of me. ‘This was discovered by a spirejack on the outer wall, about eight hundred metres below the mansion. Do you recognise him at all?’

‘Not really,’ I said, keeping my voice conversational with some difficulty. Throne alone knows I’ve seen more than my share of violent death over the decades, even considering my vocation, but this was something out of the ordinary even by those standards. ‘What with him not having a face and everything.’ The corpse in question was tangled in a vox-array, which probably hadn’t been made any more effective by its addition, the impact having been violent enough to shatter bone, burst flesh, and put a serious crimp in several of the antennae.

‘Pistol bolt to the head,’ Amberley commented, glancing over my shoulder with professional detachment, no doubt having produced a similar effect herself on more than one occasion. Defroy’s eyebrows rose as recognition dawned, and his mouth opened, clearly about to ask her what she was doing here. Amberley forestalled him, raising a hand in greeting and displaying her electoo as the palm opened. ‘Don’t mind me, I’m just here to help. Or make your life very uncomfortable if you get in my way.’

Defroy turned to Fulcher. ‘She’s the inquisitor we’ve been hearing rumours about?’ he asked, in much the same tone of incredulity that the governor had used.

‘Apparently so.’ Fulcher shrugged. ‘Just go with it.’