Ciaphas Cain: Choose Your Enemies

‘I’m afraid it does,’ I said, although it had hardly come as a surprise. I was already as certain as I could be that someone from Fulcher’s household had arranged my attempted assassination, so it had been odds-on that the order to collect the spirit stones had come from the same source. But the confirmation that the two inquisitors were indeed investigating the same conspiracy was still troubling. ‘I don’t suppose there’s anything more? Like a name, perhaps?’

‘No, that’s it.’ Kasteen hesitated. ‘Is this something I should be worried about?’

‘No,’ I assured her, hoping it was true. ‘The eldar are more than enough to be going on with.’

‘You’re not wrong there,’ Kasteen agreed. ‘Is there anything you actually wanted, or did you just check in again to let us know you’re not dead yet?’

‘Bit of both,’ I said. ‘I can see what looks like aerial activity over Quartzvein. Are the other hives under attack now?’ Hardly likely, of course, as that would run counter to everything we’d deduced so far about the eldar strategy, but if it was true it would relieve the pressure on us immeasurably, and I couldn’t help indulging in a short bout of wishful thinking.

‘That’ll be their relief flight assembling,’ Kasteen said. ‘All the hives are launching at once, for different orbitals. Porten’s hoping the eldar will have to spread themselves thinner to intercept them all, so more of the shuttles will get through.’

‘Makes sense to me,’ I conceded, and cut the link.

‘And me,’ Mott said, which was my first clue that Amberley and her people had been listening in on the entire conversation – which, I must confess, hardly came as a surprise. ‘Given the estimated number of aerial assets at the enemy’s disposal, and assuming a roughly similar composition to all the relief flights, the probability of any one vessel reaching its destination unscathed rises to a little over fifty-two point four seven per cent.’

‘Which works for me,’ I said, trying not to get too carried away. This wasn’t going to be a milk run by any means, however much the odds were beginning to tilt in our favour, and the image of the crippled Aquila we’d so recently shared a hangar with rose up with disconcerting rapidity in my mind’s eye.

‘What did Defroy say?’ Amberley asked, turning to Pelton, apparently reminded of his recent errand by the contents of the despatch Kasteen had just read. ‘Any progress in finding out who tried to have Ciaphas murdered?’

Pelton shook his head. ‘None to speak of. He’s been reviewing security of the governor’s household as a matter of urgency, but his main priority is plugging the loophole the assassin used in case someone takes advantage of it again and has a crack at Fulcher.’

‘Fair enough,’ I conceded. ‘But if an agent of a Chaos cult can just stroll in, kill one of the household servants, and impersonate them to try and assassinate a guest, why is he even bothering to try and secure the place? I’d have the governor out of there first, and worry about security breaches afterwards.’

‘Fair point,’ Amberley agreed, raising her voice a little over the increasing volume of our engines. The horizon beyond the viewport tilted, in a manner which elicited a barely suppressed groan from my aide, and we began to climb, still keeping station with the lumbering freighter in whose shadow we were hiding. ‘But I imagine that’s not really an option with the eldar investing the planet. Where’s he going to go?’

‘And it doesn’t look good with the hoipolloi,’ Zemelda added, ‘bailing and leaving ’em to twist.’

‘Indeed it doesn’t,’ Vekkman agreed, unexpectedly disentangling her meaning with even less thought than I required. ‘The general pop­ulace needs to know the governor is standing shoulder to shoulder with them in this sort of crisis. Otherwise your friend the colonel will be hip-deep in rioters before she can blink.’ So, he’d been eavesdropping too. No surprise there.

‘I hate to bring up the obvious,’ Yanbel said, ‘but if there’s a traitor among the governor’s household, able to exploit a security breach no one else even realised was there, Defroy’s your most likely suspect.’

Pelton nodded. ‘Except he’s been liaising with Clarys every step of the investigation. If he was trying to cover something up, he’d be keeping her at arm’s length.’

‘Unless they’re in it together,’ I suggested. After all, cults generally require more than one member, although some of the Khornate ones suffer an eye-watering rate of attrition.