Ciaphas Cain: Choose Your Enemies

‘What are they doing?’ Amberley asked, a hard edge coming into her voice, and I have to admit to some puzzlement myself. Four of the troopers were kneeling over the eldar corpses, a little gingerly in the case of the one Jurgen had barbequed, prising the spirit stones away from their armour with the points of their combat knives.

A faintly puzzled frown appeared on the corporal’s face. ‘Collecting the stones,’ he said. ‘We’ve had orders to bring back as many as we can.’

‘Why?’ Amberley asked, and the young man shrugged.

‘No idea. They’re pretty enough, but they’re just dead weight on top of our kit, and if the pointy-ears know you’re carrying one they’ll fight like daemons to get to it instead of backing off when anyone with any tactical sense would just withdraw.’

‘And where do these orders come from?’ I asked, and, once again, the corporal shrugged.

‘Right from the top,’ he said, ‘that’s all the lieutenant said. One of those need to know things.’

‘Of course,’ I said.

The young man dropped his voice confidentially. ‘If you ask me, it’s that inquisitor everyone’s been talking about. No one knows why they do anything, but it’s bound to be important.’

‘Yes, it is.’ Amberley nodded, with a decisive glance up the tunnel behind the planetary defence force squad. ‘Is the way to the nearest gate still clear?’

‘Pretty much,’ the corporal confirmed, while I tried not to let my sudden surge of relief show on my face. ‘We’re holding the line for now, although a few of the eldar are managing to filter through.’ He nodded, with rather more confidence than tactical acumen. ‘Plenty more of our lads further up hive to stop ’em, though.’

‘Good.’ Amberley gestured us forward, past the troopers, who watched us go with politely restrained curiosity. ‘Then the quicker we get back the better.’

‘What happened to trying to close down the webway?’ I asked, once I was sure we were no longer in earshot of the local militia. Not that I was keen to resume trying to get to it, quite the contrary, but it wasn’t like Amberley to change her mind about mission objectives once we were out in the field.146 Fortunately, however, she seemed at least as focused on this new one as she had been on the old, which was fine by me.

‘This business with the spirit stones changes everything,’ she said. ‘I want a word with Vekkman, about what in the warp he thinks he’s up to.’

Nineteen

‘Spirit stones?’ Vekkman looked at the little pile of shimmering objects that had just clattered onto the polished steel surface of the conference table in the Adeptus Arbites office, where, exactly as Fulcher had intimated, he’d set up shop alongside Osric and his staff. ‘An interesting collection of gewgaws, but I don’t see what they have to do with the matter at hand.’

He picked one up, gingerly, staring at the pattern of lights rippling across its surface. Amberley and I glanced at one another in mutual surprise. I’d pictured a number of possible reactions from him during our long and relatively uneventful147 trudge up from the depths of the underhive, but apparently genuine bemusement hadn’t been among them.

‘In that case,’ I said, already sure of the answer, but determined to go through with it because somebody had to, ‘why did you order the planetary defence force to collect as many as they could?’

This time there was no mistaking his astonishment. His eyebrows rose, and the spirit stone in his hand abruptly joined the others with an emphatic and resonant clunk! ‘I did no such thing. What would be the point?’

‘Precisely what we were asking ourselves,’ Amberley said dryly.

The conference room was small as such things went, and her voice carried easily across it. There were no external windows, which suited our requirement for privacy, and precious little furnishing beyond the table, the chairs around it and the inevitable aquila symbol of the Adeptus Arbites – which in this case bore a pair of scales heavily tilted in the direction of fealty to the Emperor in one talon, and a gout of flame in the other – dominating the wall. Pelton and Jurgen stood either side of the firmly closed door, bolt pistol and lasgun in hand respectively, ensuring our discussion remained uninterrupted. At least that was what we were pretending; Amberley still didn’t trust her Ordo Malleus colleague any further than she could drop kick a Titan, and I didn’t trust anybody apart from my aide, whose pervasive aroma was beginning to seep over to our side of the room, a reassuring olfactory presence. More specifically, given that most of the inquisitors I’d encountered apart from Amberley had been nuttier than a caba plantation, if I was going to be stuck with one in a room that had only one exit I’d be a lot happier knowing that Jurgen was standing beside it with a gun in his hands.

Vekkman shrugged. ‘If someone’s stockpiling them, they must have a reason. But it isn’t me, and I doubt very much that it’s Osric. You say the defence force troopers are collecting these things?’