The Beast Arises

‘Been a very long time, besides,’ Wire added. ‘A long time not seeing your face. I’m no longer familiar with its nuances. I wouldn’t know what sadness looked like anyway, even if I could read it for sure.’

Wire rose from his worn leather seat, brushing imaginary lint from his double-breasted arbiter jacket.

‘A long time,’ he said, an echo, spoken only to himself.

Vangorich was still in the doorway. Wire beckoned him.

‘You can come in, sir,’ he said. ‘Come right in. Or do you have to be invited over the threshold like a night ghoul?’

Vangorich stepped inside the control room. It was brightly lit, too brightly lit, the hard shine of the lamp-globes and spots revealing every fatigued edge and scuffed fascia of the control suite: the dials and levers worn by centuries of hands, the milky read-outs, the chattering banks of antiquated switches, the electric noticeboards with their mechanical letters and series lights that stated the day’s crimes and actions and, every few minutes, reshuffled and revised, like the journey monitors at transit stations.

Monitor Station KVF (Division 134) Sub 12 (Arbitrator). It had taken Vangorich four hours to get there. An hour’s flight east from the Palace by suborbital, then a three-hour descent into the underhives of Tashkent Spire, a journey of rattling lift cages, suspension platforms and dank hallways.

It had taken Esad Wire a great deal longer to reach Monitor Station KVF. After his past life was laundered and washed clean, three years at Adeptus Arbitrator incept training, two more at the Procedural Division in the Asiatic Domes, and then eight years with Tashkent Major Case and another six as a jurisdiction subcommander. Then he got the Sector Overseer star to pin on his jacket, and a monitor control room full of antiquated switches.

Everything was processed, everything formalised. Every crime had to be catalogued and filed, described and posted, and redirected to the appropriate division. It was a ritualised system that had never really coped with the actuality of real life and real crime in the vast hive, but it was considered the optimal solution and thus persevered with. Running the data-switching station was also considered a task of great responsibility, and thus always awarded to a man of significance or ability, as a mark of promotion. Esad Wire was not a law enforcer. He did not fight crime. He simply filed it.

The room was essentially automated. Wire made a gesture, and two junior arbiters, the only other living people present, went off to find duties in adjacent chambers.

‘“You look unhappy”,’ said Vangorich. ‘After all this time, that’s the beginning of your conversation?’

Wire shrugged.

‘It struck me as so,’ he said.

‘How has life treated you since you left the Officio?’ Vangorich asked. He did not look at Wire. He studied the chattering, updating lines of tile-type that were rattling up and down the displays.

‘One never really leaves the Officio, sir,’ Wire replied, with a half-smile.

‘No need for the sir,’ said Vangorich.

Wire shook his head.

‘I think so. You are a man of a certain position in life and the world, and I am another, of another position. The inequality of our states seems to indicate I should call you that.’

‘It’s good to see you, Beast,’ said Vangorich.

‘And you, sir.’ Wire grinned. ‘Damn, I haven’t been called that in a long time.’

He walked to the side cupboards and poured two mugs of thick, black caffeine from a jug. He handed one to the Grand Master.

‘Social call, is it? Been a couple of decades, about time I visited Esad?’

‘I’ve wanted to before, many times,’ said Vangorich with surprising directness. ‘Never been appropriate.’

‘Is it now?’

‘No, but I did it anyway. I needed to get out. I needed to… converse with someone who wasn’t anything to do with anything at the Palace.’

‘Find a priest,’ suggested Wire. ‘A confessor.’

‘The priests all have agendas,’ replied Vangorich.

‘So… you’re here. Go on.’

‘Little men,’ said Vangorich, taking a seat at one of the monitor stations and sipping his caffeine. ‘Little men, playing at being High Lords. Personal ambition is in danger of costing the Imperium very dearly. I tried to block it, but the Officio doesn’t have the clout it once wielded, and I got played.’

‘Lansung. Udo. Mesring,’ said Wire quietly.

Vangorich smiled.

‘Well informed.’

‘There’s little to do here, sir,’ said Wire. ‘I fill my time with the data-slates and the court reports. I do like to keep up with the reported business of the legislature and the Senatorum. Politics has always been an interest of mine. My old dad used to say that politics is what determines who lives and who dies, so though the business of parliaments sounds dull, it pays to keep an eye on what those idiots are up to.’

‘Published Senatorum records don’t show the half of it,’ said Vangorich.