Blood Pact

NINETEEN Traces and Results

The Inquisition’s birds had set down in Viceroy Square and the courtyards of Section. Their fans were cycling on neutral and the snow fell softly around them. The snowflakes perished fast when they landed on the hot hoods of the turbo fan assemblies. Black smoke was still pluming from the HQ’s damaged wings.

Kolea waited at the gate with a group of Tanith personnel that included Baskevyl and Larkin. Edur prowled around nearby with some storm-troopers from S Company, keeping his eye on Rime and the forces of the ordos, who were searching the stands of trees in the square’s gardens.

‘Will we be expected to take shots?’ Larkin asked Kolea.

‘Of course not,’ Kolea replied.

‘But we’ll be up and scoping?’

‘Will you relax, Larks?’ Kolea said.

‘It feels wrong, Gol,’ Larkin said. ‘I shouldn’t be going looking for Gaunt through my scope.’

‘So noted, Larkin,’ said Baskevyl. He touched Kolea’s arm. ‘Here comes Mkoll.’

Mkoll, Bonin and the other Tanith scouts came into view, walking out through the gatehouse towards them. Behind them, Section smouldered against the colourless sky.

‘Talk to me,’ said Kolea.

‘Gaunt’s alive,’ said Mkoll, coming to a halt in front of the acting commander and pulling a small but respectful salute. ‘The high-value prisoner too. We’ve seen monitor footage and track-back from the gate cameras, and pict-feed from guard-tower mounts.’

‘Gaunt and Maggs busted out of here at the height of the attack,’ said Caober. ‘Hell of a thing. They were definitely the Blood Pact’s main targets.’

‘So they’re alive,’ said Kolea. ‘Close by?’

‘Give us ten minutes and we’ll tell you,’ said Bonin.

‘Who’s going aloft?’ asked Baskevyl.

Bonin looked at Mkoll.

Mkoll said, ‘You go up. Take Larks with you. Hwlan, get upstairs with Nessa.’

‘On it!’ Hwlan called back.

They ran to their waiting Valkyries. Turbo-fans began to wind up to speed. Mkoll gestured to Jajjo, Preed and the other scouts and they began to move forward. Eszrah ap Niht had been standing near Baskevyl. When the scouts moved off, so did he.

The trees in the square trembled and swished as the two Valkyries took off, and snow gusted out like dust.

‘I didn’t authorise any transport lifts!’ Inquisitor Rime declared, striding over to them. ‘Where are those Valkyries going?’

‘We’ve got the scent,’ Kolea told him.

‘Really? And this scent? Who has it?’

‘He does, sir,’ said Kolea. He pointed across the snowy gardens.

‘And he’s your chief of scouts? Does he know what he’s doing?’

‘The Tanith know what they’re doing, inquisitor,’ said Edur.

Out in front, Mkoll was slowly following the tracks left in the snow. As if realising they were talking about him, he rose and looked back.

He beckoned them after him.

‘Game on,’ muttered Gol Kolea.

‘It would have been nice to get out there with them,’ remarked Nahum Ludd. He was gazing out of the command post’s grubby windows at the snow falling onto Aarlem’s parade ground.

‘Too many chiefs,’ replied Hark.

‘How so, sir?’

Hark looked up at his junior from the stack of reports he was working through.

‘The Inquisition’s all over this. Did you not get the impression that the Edur fellow was doing everything he could to retain some control of the operation?’

‘I suppose.’

‘Thanks to him, we’ve got Tanith officers and scouts on the ground. I think if he’d tried to bring Commissariat personnel into the mix too, that creep Rime would have burst something aortic.’

‘Do you know Edur?’ Ludd asked.

‘No,’ replied Hark. ‘I’ve met him a couple of times at Section. He seems a decent sort. I’m glad we’ve got him on our side.’

Hark fell silent and stared at the clock on the wall.

‘What?’ asked Ludd.

‘Nothing, Ludd.’

‘You were going to say something.’

‘I was just thinking that I hope Edur’s on the level. Whatever’s going on here, it’s messy and complicated, and everybody seems to want a piece of it. I hope Edur’s the friend Gaunt needs. I hope Edur doesn’t have an agenda of his own.’

‘You think he might?’ asked Ludd. ‘He seemed a decent sort, like you said.’

Hark sighed. ‘You develop a nose for these things, Ludd. Every commissar does, sooner or later. You get so you can detect what’s behind the mask. Edur’s keeping something back, though it may just be the nature of this high-value prisoner.’

‘I’ll develop this knack too, will I?’ asked Ludd.

‘Of course. And it will aid your work immeasurably. It will tell you, for instance, that Trooper Criid is not here simply to deliver his company day sheet.’

Ludd turned. Dalin Criid was standing in the office doorway, a fresh day sheet in his hands. He looked awkward.

‘Sorry to interrupt, sir,’ he began. ‘I was told to bring this to you in Major Kolea’s absence.’

‘On the desk please,’ said Hark. ‘Then you can tell us what’s really on your mind.’

Dalin wavered slightly.

‘Come on, boy,’ said Hark. ‘It doesn’t take two of you to deliver a day sheet, and if Merrt thinks I can’t see him lurking out there in the corridor, his prosthetic face is not his biggest problem after all.’

Merrt loomed in the doorway. ‘I didn’t mean to cause any gn… gn… gn… trouble, sir,’ he said, chewing the words out through his ugly augmetic jaw. ‘I was just giving Dalin some moral support. He thinks he’s found something.’

‘Why do you need moral support, Criid?’ asked Hark.

‘Permission to speak openly, commissar?’

‘Granted.’

‘I knew I’d have to bring it to you, sir, and you scare the hell out of me.’

‘Good answer,’ said Ludd.

‘I ought to scare the hell out of you too, Ludd,’ growled Hark. ‘All right, Criid, what have you got? Waiting around here for news from the city is driving me batty, so distract me with something interesting.’

‘I’m E Company adjutant, and with Meryn, I mean Captain Meryn, off-base, that means I have to run all the dailies and keep on top of–’

‘Funnily enough, I’m surprisingly conversant with day to day military business,’ said Hark.

‘Yes, commissar. Of course you are, commissar.’

‘Let’s have it, then.’

Dalin paused.

‘I was running the daily tests on the company vox-sets, and I think I got a signal, sir,’ he said.

Hark gestured towards the hall doorway behind Dalin. ‘There are three nice men from the Inquisition in the vox office across the hall, Criid,’ he said. ‘I doubt you’ve picked up anything they haven’t. They’re monitoring all traffic.’

‘Of course,’ Dalin agreed. ‘Except this is a twin, sir.’

Ludd looked at Hark.

Hark sat forward and gestured to Merrt.

‘Would you mind closing the door please, Trooper Merrt?’ he asked.

Merrt closed the door, and leaned against it for good measure.

‘I don’t get it,’ said Ludd.

‘Are you sure it’s a twin?’ Hark asked Dalin.

‘Sure as I can be, sir,’ Dalin replied. ‘The sequence is buried, but it’s clear enough. It’s E Company signature, so that suggests to me it’s Captain Meryn.’

‘Because Meryn would use his company code to contact his own company’s casters,’ Hark ruminated.

‘Exactly.’

‘Excuse me,’ said Ludd. ‘I don’t get it.’

‘And there’s a locator tag tacked on to the signature?’ Hark asked.

Dalin nodded and said, ‘I checked it back. It’s your call sign code, sir. Captain Meryn… or whoever sent the signal, wants to talk to you.’

‘Uhm…’ said Ludd, and raised his hand.

Hark glanced at him in aggravation.

‘What is it, Ludd?’ he asked.

‘I don’t get it,’ said Ludd.

‘It’s a sleight of hand thing,’ Hark said. ‘An old Guard trick. If you need to get a message through, and you can’t guarantee that the receiving caster is secure, you send what’s known in vox-officer vernacular as a twin.’

‘How does it work?’ asked Ludd.

‘The sender broadcasts a signal on one of the standard operational Guard frequencies,’ said Dalin. ‘It sounds… I’m sorry, sir. I’m speaking out of turn.’

‘Go on, Criid,’ nodded Hark.

‘Well,’ said Dalin, ‘the signal sounds like junk noise to anyone listening in. The Inquisition, for example. But it’s not, in several ways. For starters, it’s ’caster specific, coded for specific reception, in this case E Company vox units. And though it sounds like a random noise burst or static drizzle, it’s got the company-signature vox-code buried in it. It took me a moment to recognise that.’

‘So it’s a message that sounds like vox-clutter?’ asked Ludd.

Dalin nodded.

‘And here’s the clever bit,’ he said. ‘The junk signal contains the signature, plus another code called the locator. In this instance, someone has used Commissar Hark’s call sign code. The locator tells you where you should really be looking.’

‘For what?’ asked Ludd.

‘The actual message,’ said Merrt from behind them.

‘The locator is a code representing another frequency,’ said Dalin. ‘A non-standard channel, something out in the trash bandwidth. That’s where the twin is hidden. It’s called a twin, because it’s a twin of the first message. It’s usually passive-looped or non receptive, meaning that the receiver has to reach out, in vox terms, and capture the message. It’s just floating out there in the aether, waiting, completely undetectable unless you know where to look for it.’

‘And that’s what the locator tells you?’ asked Ludd.

Dalin nodded.

‘How long ago was this, Criid?’ Hark asked.

‘About twenty minutes, sir. I asked Merrt to check my findings on the quiet before I came to you.’

‘I think it’s authentic, sir,’ Merrt said, ‘but maybe you’d better gn… gn… gn… get Beltayn to look at it.’

‘Did you look at the message itself?’ Hark asked Dalin.

‘No, sir.’

‘All right then, that’s what we’ll do first. Ludd, go and find Beltayn. And Rerval. Let’s get some vox expertise on this. Criid, grab one of the E Company casters and bring it to the temple house. We’ll work in there, out of the way. Merrt can get a weapon and watch the doors. This is strictly between us until I say otherwise, gentlemen. Right, let’s move.’

They went out into the hallway. Ludd and Merrt sped off in one direction, and Hark and Dalin strode the other way. There was the usual mid-morning activity, and a braised bean-and-cabbage smell wafting in from the canteen.

Hark and Dalin passed Curth, coming the other way with her arms full of medical reports.

‘Everything all right, Viktor?’ she asked as they passed.

‘Everything’s fine, Ana.’

‘Are you sure? You look–’

‘I look what, doctor?’

Curth turned and considered him.

‘You look like something’s up,’ she said. ‘Like something’s happened. Has something happened, Viktor?’

Hark shook his head, and said, ‘Nothing at all, Ana. Just a few discipline issues I have to take care of. You know how these things are. Perhaps I look flushed because I’m relishing the prospect of shooting someone who deserves to be shot.’

‘As long as that’s all it is,’ Curth replied, and went on her way towards the medicae.

‘Something’s afoot,’ she said to Dorden as she came into the medicae office.

‘Anatomically?’ he asked, glancing up from his work.

Curth smiled.

‘Hark’s covering,’ she said. ‘I saw him just now in the hall. Something’s going on.’

She dumped the stack of reports on Dorden’s desk and began to work through them.

‘What’s this?’ asked Dorden.

‘Everything we sent to the pharmacon yesterday has come back.’

‘You’re joking! It usually takes a week.’

Curth shook her head.

‘Nope,’ she said. ‘Everything. Every single test, every single sample, every single blood. Praise be the Emperor for lock-down.’

‘What?’

‘The pharmacon staff couldn’t leave base last night, so, for want of anything more interesting to do, they worked through the entire case-load. I think we should remind them how fast they can work next time we have a rush on and they tell us they’re pushed.’

‘Agreed,’ said Dorden. He began to help her sort the file packets, breaking the seals on confidential examination reports.

‘Costin’s hep is confirmed,’ she read. ‘I’ll get him in to discuss remedial care.’

‘Have you got Twenzet’s bloods there?’

‘Yes, and they look all right. Which is more than can be said for Neskon’s augmetics. It looks like he’s rejecting again.’

‘If Neskon can’t keep that leg, it could see him out of the Guard on a 4-F.’

‘I know,’ said Curth. ‘I’m exploring other options.’

‘What were you saying about Hark?’

‘He’s hiding something,’ Curth said. ‘Something’s going on.’

‘How could you tell, Ana?’ Dorden asked.

‘You develop a nose for these things,’ she replied. ‘Something is afoot.’

She opened another packet.

‘Oh, this one’s yours,’ she said, handing it to him.

Dorden read the tag strip.

‘Aha, Zweil,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’ He pulled the envelope open and slid out the contents.

‘Viktor just had this look on his face, you know?’ Curth said, sorting through the remainder of the reports for priority. ‘You know that look he gets? Dorden?’

She turned and looked across the desk at the Ghosts’ elderly doctor.

‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.

‘Oh, Throne,’ Dorden whispered, turning the pages of the pharmacon report and reading quickly.

‘Dorden? What’s the matter?’

‘Oh, feth,’ said Dorden. He closed his eyes, shut the report, and handed it to her. Curth took it from him and started to read.

‘Shit,’ she murmured.

‘The old dog must’ve known,’ Dorden said, taking off his spectacles and massaging the bridge of his nose. ‘That’s why he was dodging the medicals.’

‘Oh, this is just awful,’ said Curth. She sniffed hard and rubbed her eyes. ‘It’s unfair, that’s what it is.’

Dorden nodded.

‘So who gets to tell him?’ Curth asked.