Ciaphas Cain: Choose Your Enemies

‘The uniform’s the same as the man who tried to kill me,’ I said, dragging the conversation back to the matter in hand. ‘So I take it that’s the real chauffeur?’

‘We believe so,’ Defroy said. ‘Clarys is getting her medicae to do a genetic match, but it’s going to take a while to recover the body and make certain. Till then, our best guess is that the assassin waylaid him, switched places and dumped the body, either from the air car or directly out of the airlock before leaving. It was pure chance that the wind shear brought it back close enough to the spire to become entangled.’

‘Which means that an armed assassin was able to wander around the governor’s mansion unchallenged,’ I said. ‘Hardly an encouraging prospect.’

Fulcher smiled thinly. ‘Try looking at it from this seat,’ he said.

‘Or mine,’ Defroy added. ‘We’re investigating how that might be possible, but with thousands of servants on the staff, it’ll take some time before we can tell if anyone’s missing. And if nobody is, of course, that raises a whole lot of other questions.’

‘Then we’ll leave that in your capable hands,’ Amberley said, rising. ‘Let us know how you get on.’ She glanced at me. ‘Coming?’

‘By all means,’ I said.

To my surprise, and, I must confess, a degree of relief, we didn’t take to the air again from the hangar at which I’d arrived. Instead, Amberley led me through a tangle of richly carpeted and over-ornamented corridors to the cavernous entrance hall I remembered from gatecrashing the governor’s soiree. Liveried flunkies bowed us out through the thick steel door, with its inevitable display of the Fulcher crest, as though we were simply regular visitors,120 and I found myself in an armourcrys biome, the transparent walls and ceiling of which afforded a dazzling view of the curvature of the planet so far below – or, at least, of the upper layer of the noxious clouds which hid the surface. I vaguely remembered having arrived here for the welcoming party, but at the time the crowds and the constantly moving vehicles had made it hard to appreciate the vista. Now it was empty, apart from a couple of distant servitors raking the gravel and clipping the topiary, and I was able to appreciate the scale and magnificence of the gardens surrounding the mansion. Rolling lawns led the eye to a small lake, which no doubt doubled as an ornamental reservoir in case of prolonged siege, artfully set around with formal beds, hedging and clumps of trees to break up the open space, making it feel both more intimate and larger than it actually was. From a tactical point of view, I noted cynically, it would also funnel a massed assault into clearly defined fire lanes.

The only vehicle parked outside the house was Amberley’s limousine, which I recognised at once, hovering a few centimetres above the drive, its gravitic repulsors humming gently. The windows were fully polarised, dark reflective pools in which our doppelgangers imitated our every move. After a moment the door hummed open, and I followed Amberley into the obscured interior, dropping into the seat beside her before I realised the air car already held another passenger.

‘Commissar. We meet again,’ Vekkman said, as though contemplating an imminent attack of indigestion.

Amberley leaned towards Pelton, who was, as usual, occupying the driver’s seat, the chauffeur’s cap perched on top of his head doing absolutely nothing to make him look more like a household servant than concentrated harm looking for someone to happen to. ‘The Imperial Guard post, Flicker, if you wouldn’t mind. And take your time. We’ve things to discuss.’

‘I’ll take the scenic route, then,’ he said, the edge of sarcasm in his voice not so much concealed as lurking in ambush. He fed power to the gravitics, and the limousine rose smoothly into the air, in stark contrast to the jolting progress I’d experienced in the governor’s air car. Which, come to think of it, made a lot more sense now it was obvious my driver on that occasion’s primary skill set had little to do with the piloting of aerial vehicles.

‘How’s your investigation going?’ I asked, hoping for a little good news at least.

‘Slowly,’ Vekkman replied, as though that were somehow my fault. ‘It would be far easier to trace connections back from Drechia, where the cult’s been dragged into the open, than try to uncover a potential cell from this end.’

‘Then you’ll need to ask the eldar to get out of your way,’ Amberley said, as Pelton guided the limousine through the cavernous airlock chamber. The great bronze doors of the inner entry way ground closed behind us, sealing with an echoing clang! which resonated through the armoured bodywork of the air car, and we glided to a halt in front of the outer one, which – inevitably – was decorated with the Fulcher family crest, each constituent of which was larger than the vehicle we rode in. ‘Good luck with that.’