Ciaphas Cain: Choose Your Enemies

‘I suppose this must be the pneumatic whatsername was talking about,’ I said, as we came to the end of the corridor after several minutes of walking. I’d been fairly certain we were going in the right direction, as variously coloured arrows adorned the walls at intervals, and there hadn’t been anywhere else to go in any case. Now the passageway opened out into a large, circular chamber, where others joined it; the space was crowded with a number of metal tubes of various diameters which pierced the floor and ceiling, like a necron’s idea of a forest. Some were wide enough to have parked a small vehicle in, no doubt intended for the efficient movement of cargo, while others were evidently for the use of passengers.

‘This one, I think, sir,’ Jurgen said, indicating a medium-sized one decorated with several arrows, all bisected along their lengths into two colours. One did indeed look bluish and greyish, which I supposed was close enough to cerulean taupe.

‘Only one way to find out,’ I said, jabbing at the rune to open the thick, curving door. For a moment nothing happened, then a loud rumbling shook the metal tube. As it died away, the door slid open with a faint hiss, admitting us to a cylindrical inner chamber. I stepped inside, finding a panel mounted on the wall next to the doorway, with a number of arrows inset in it, their particoloured decoration matching those on the outside to which Jurgen had so recently drawn my attention. The next step was obvious, so I prodded the blue and grey one and hoped for the best.

The door clanked closed, sealing with a thud, then the whole contraption shifted, with a loud hissing noise as the air pressure built up on one side. Then, with a lurch – and a surge of acceleration which left me feeling as though my kneecaps were suddenly level with my ears – we were off, bouncing and rattling so much I began to feel nostalgic for the dogfight we’d so recently come through. It seemed to me that we jolted through several junctions and changes of direction, but the internal grav-plates kept us orientated in the same plane throughout our journey, so it was hard to be sure. All I could be certain of was that it only took about five minutes to reach our destination, and we arrived there with a sudden jerk which almost dislodged the cap from my head.

‘I suppose you’d get used to it,’ Jurgen commented, his usual phlegmatic demeanour now well and truly restored, and I nodded, adjusting my headgear to a more dignified position.

‘I imagine you would,’ I agreed, although if I lived around here and I had the time, I’d probably walk as much as I could. Before either of us could comment any further, however, the door of the capsule hissed open, and we were struck by the noise and bustle of a busy commercial docking zone. ‘Looks like the right place, anyway.’

Jurgen nodded, and we stepped out of the transport tube with, I must confess, a certain sense of relief, at least on my part. It was one of several, at the confluence of a quartet of corridors far wider and higher than the one we’d walked down after leaving the hangar bay in which we’d arrived, all of which were full of traffic. Some of the tubes were larger than any we’d seen before; as we stepped hurriedly aside, a lorry growled past us and on through the open door of one of these, in which it parked. A moment later the door hissed closed, and it was whisked away Emperor knew where.

‘That looks like one of the trucks Pelton got a lift with,’ Jurgen remarked, and I nodded, having come to the same conclusion – which was confirmed almost at once, as a new capsule arrived in place of the recent departure and disgorged another utility vehicle displaying the gubernatorial crest. This one was riding noticeably higher on its springs, indicating that its load had been delivered and it was on its way back for another.

‘This way,’ I said, setting out after it through the maelstrom of people, servitors and vehicles arriving and departing all around us, mostly heavily laden. If this wasn’t where the majority of the relief ships had ended up, it was clear that a reasonable number had docked in this part of the orbital, and the supplies they’d brought with them were now well on the way to where they were supposed to be. Most of them, anyway; some degree of pilferage was inevitable, but I saw a fair number of blue-and-gold uniforms keeping an eye on things, so at least that would be kept to a minimum.

Despite the confusion surrounding us we managed to make reasonable progress through the crowd, which parted with gratifying ease, possibly because of the visible weapons we carried, and possibly because most people tended to give Jurgen a wide berth whenever they could, even at the best of times. That made it easy to keep the truck we followed in sight, and mark which hangar it disappeared into even at a distance of over a hundred metres.