'The gratitude of the powerful is a heavy weight to bear.'
- Gilbran Quail, Collected Essays
DAWN BROKE AT last across the wounded city, columns of smoke cracking the
porcelain blue of the sky above the compound as the sun rose higher and ceased to
echo the glow from the scattered fires, and my mood remained foul all morning. To
my relief, we'd managed to make it back without having to shoot anyone else, apart
from a couple of looters who'd been so high on some vicious local pharmaceutical
they hadn't even realised the truck they were trying to hijack was full of armed
soldiers until after they were dead, and all I wanted was a few hours' sleep. I'd been so
pumped full of adrenaline since the assassin's gun went off that, when I finally got the
chance to relax, I collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, and even Jurgen's
appearance with a fresh pot of tanna tea hadn't been enough to revive me.
Nevertheless I made my report to brigade headquarters as quickly as I could,
reasoning that the sooner the whole sorry mess was someone else's problem the better,
and after an hour or so of paperwork, crawled away to my bunk with strict orders that
I wasn't to be disturbed for anything short of a summons from the Emperor Himself.
In the event, I got about an hour's sleep before the next best thing.
'Frak off!' I shouted, after the knocking on my door had finally become loud and
insistent enough to wake me, and had gone on for long enough to convince me that it
wasn't going to stop unless I responded in some way.
'I'm sorry to disturb you, commissar.' Broklaw's head appeared round the doorframe,
looking remarkably free of regret. 'But I'm afraid I can't. There are some people wanting
to see you.'
Tired as I was, I knew there was no point in arguing. The mere fact that it was an
officer of his rank rousting me out, instead of Jurgen or some other lowly trooper, told
me that. I yawned, trying to force my sluggish brain into gear, and reluctantly rolled
out of bed.
'I'll be right there,' I said.
In the event that turned out to be a bit of an optimistic forecast. By the time I'd thrown
some clothes on, splashed some water on my face, (and for once, the Valhallan habit
of washing in ice water didn't provoke a stream of blasphemy from me, which gives
you some idea of how far gone I was) and got Jurgen to brew some double-strength
recaf, nearly twenty minutes had passed. But I followed the directions I'd been given,
picking my way carefully across the compound (the Rough Riders were still around
somewhere) and entered a building I'd vaguely recalled being earmarked for the
brigade-level communications specialists. That meant Intelligence, of course, and I
assumed I was about to be debriefed about the events of last night by some high-level
spook.
If I hadn't been so tired, I would probably have wondered about the number of highranking officers in the echoing marble corridors, and the increasing opulence of the
furnishings in the succession of anterooms I was waved through by dress-uniformed
troopers with gold-plated lasguns, but it all passed in a haze of irritation, and I never
thought to question where I was and who had sent for me so peremptorily.
'Commissar. Please, come in.' The voice was familiar, but, dazed as I still was from
lack of sleep, it took me a moment to recognise Donali. He smiled what looked like a
genuine welcome, and motioned me towards a side table where a fresh pot of tanna tea
steamed invitingly next to several large platters of food.
I smiled in return, equally pleased to see him, although his night's adventures had
obviously been at least as traumatic as my own. His expensive attire was now
crumpled and stained, smelling of smoke and blood, and a dressing patch was stuck to
his forehead.
'This is an unexpected pleasure,' I said, spooning a large portion of salma kedgeree
onto a plate, and pouring tea into the most capacious mug I could find. 'I must admit I
was rather concerned for your safety.'
'You weren't the only one.' Donali fingered the dressing patch ruefully. 'Things got a
little hectic after you left.'
I took a seat at the conference table in the middle of the room. Several officers I didn't
recognise were already there, along with other men and women in civilian dress. The
latter I assumed to be Donali's colleagues, from the cut of their garments and their
general air of bureaucratic prissiness. The only one who stuck out from the crowd was
a woman slightly younger than the others, who wore an elegant green gown a couple
of sizes too small for her, which showed rather too much decolletage for so early in
the day, and who seemed curiously distracted, twitching and mumbling to herself from
time to time before snapping upright and glaring round at the rest of us as though we'd
somehow insulted her. I'd have taken her for an astropath, if it weren't for the fact that
she still had her eyes, which seemed to swim in and out of focus. Probably a psyker,
then - I resolved to keep my mental barriers up - but as I've remarked before, I've
never had much trouble dissembling in front of them despite their curse.
'Sorry I missed all the fun,' I said, playing up to the audience's expectations of me, and
started in on the food. I still had no idea why I was here, but I was a seasoned enough
campaigner to make the most of the rations while they were on offer. While I plied my
fork, I took the opportunity to study the officers' insignia, hoping for some clue as to
their identities and why I was there, and found them a mixed bunch indeed.
My gaze swept across a couple of majors, a colonel, and as I got my first good look at
the man seated at the head of the table, I almost dropped my cutlery. This could only
be Lord General Zyvan himself, the supreme commander of our little expedition. I
hadn't seen any pictures of him, but his rank and campaign medals were clearly
visible, and I'd heard enough descriptions of his steely blue eyes (actually slightly
watery) and neatly trimmed beard (concealing the beginnings of a double chin) to
have no doubt as to his identity. He was half turned away from me, discussing the
contents of a dataslate with an aide, and Donali was able to continue our conversation
as he dropped into the seat beside me.
'Don't be,' he said. 'You did us a far greater service last night than you could possibly
have done by staying.'
'I'm glad to hear it,' I said. 'But you seem to have managed all right. The palace guard
must be better soldiers than they look.'
'Hardly.' He shook his head in disgust. 'Half of those antique weapons of theirs
malfunctioned, and the ones who did shoot couldn't hit the side of a star-ship. We
barely held out until the PDF platoon arrived. If it hadn't been for Orelius and his
bodyguards picking off the ringleaders, the mob would have rolled right over us.'
'Orelius. Hm,' I took a welcome sip of the tea, and noticed that no one else seemed to
be drinking it. Well, it's an acquired taste, I admit, I'm one of the few non-Valhallans I
know who likes the stuff, but the implication was flattering, they'd clearly provided it
for my personal benefit. Whatever I'd been called here for they wanted to keep me
happy, which was fine by me. 'You were right about him, obviously.'
'I was?' Donali looked at me curiously, and again I felt he was playing some subtle
diplomatic game. Trying to gauge how much I'd surmised of what was going on
behind the scenes, I supposed. I nodded, clearing the plate, and wondered if I could
get away with going back for another portion.
'You said there was more to him than met the eye,' I reminded him.
'So I did.' He might have been about to say more, but Zyvan turned back to the
conference table and cleared his throat. Blast, I thought, there goes my chance at a
second helping of kedgeree. There was still plenty of tea in the mug, though, so I
sipped at it, regarding the room through a haze of pleasantly scented steam.
'Commissar,' Zyvan addressed me directly. 'Thank you for joining us so promptly.'
'My lord general,' I nodded a formal greeting. 'If I'd known your chef was so talented I
would have been even less tardy,' I added, enjoying the sudden intake of breath from
around half those present. A commissar, of course, is outside the normal chain of
command, so technically I didn't have to show deference to him or to anyone else, but
most of us do our best not to remind the officers around us of the fact. As I like to tell
my cadets these days, treat them with respect and they'll do the same to you. All frak,
of course, but it greases the wheels. My status as a widely acknowledged hero allows
me a bit more latitude, though, and I knew Zyvan had a reputation for bluntness
himself, so I felt a bit of the bluff old soldier routine would go down well with him. I
was right, too. He warmed to me at once, and we got on like a downhive bar brawl
after that.
'I'll pass on your compliments,' he said with a half-smile, and the sycophants around
the table decided they ought to like me too. 'If you'd care to avail yourself further
before we proceed?'
'Proceed with what, exactly?' I asked, moving to refill my plate. I'd forgotten to take
my mug with me, so I took the teapot back to the table and topped it up there, keeping
it beside me in case I wanted another refill. Partly, I admit, for the pleasure of
upsetting some of the bootlickers again. 'Anyone else, while I'm up?'
'Thank you, no.' Zyvan waited until I'd sat down again before deciding he'd like some
more recaf after all, and dispatching the most disapproving-looking of his aides to deal
with it. As he did so his eye caught mine, and the gleam of mischief in it was
unmistakable. I decided I liked the lord general.
'I've been reading your report,' he said, once his recaf had arrived. 'And I think I speak
for everyone here when I say that I'm impressed.' A chorus of mumbled assent rippled
around the table, not all of it grudging. Donali smiled warmly at me as he nodded, and
I reflected that I seemed to have found a friend in the diplomatic corps, which could
be very useful in future. The strange woman in green met my eyes for a moment.
'Choose your friends carefully,' she said suddenly, her voice harsh with flattened
vowels. I almost choked on my tea.
'I beg your pardon?' I said. But her gaze was already unfocussed again.
'There's too many out there,' she said. 'I can't hear them all.' One of the bureaucrats
handed her an ornate silver box, a little smaller than her palm, and she scrabbled a
couple of tablets out of it, swallowing them whole. After a moment her attention
seemed to sharpen again.
'You'll have to make allowances for Rakel,' Donali murmured. 'She's useful, but can
be a little difficult.'
'Evidently,' I replied.
'Not quite the envoy I would have chosen to send to this little get-together,' the
diplomat went on, 'but under the circumstances I suppose they needed her talents the
least at the moment.'
'Who did?' I asked, but before he could reply Zyvan called the meeting to order.
'Most of you know why we're here,' he began, with a sip at his recaf. 'But for those of
you who are new to these discussions,' and he acknowledged me with a conspiratorial
quirk of his mouth, let me reiterate. 'Our orders were to reclaim Gravalax for the
Imperium, by force of arms if necessary.' The military officers harrumphed
approvingly. 'However, the sheer size of the tau military presence here changes the
situation radically.'
'We can still throw them out, my lord general.' One of the officers cut in. 'It would
take longer than we'd anticipated, butó'
'We would end up mired in a protracted campaign. Maybe for years,' Zyvan cut him
off dismissively. 'And, to be blunt, I doubt the planet is worth it.'
'With respect, lord general, that isn't your decision to make,' the officer persisted. 'Our
orders areó'
'For me to interpret,' Zyvan said. The officer shut up, and the general turned to Donali.
'You still believe a diplomatic solution is possible?'
'I do,' Donali nodded. 'Although, with the civil unrest persisting, it may prove more
difficult. Not to mention the matter of the ambassador's assassination.'
'But the tau are still willing to negotiate?' Zyvan persisted.
'They are.' Donali nodded again. 'Thanks to Commissar Cain's resourcefulness last
night, we still have a residue of good faith to draw on.'
Everyone but Rakel, who seemed more interested in the underside of her recaf cup,
looked approvingly at me.
'Which brings me to the assassination itself.' Zyvan tried to attract the woman's
attention. 'Rakel. Has the inquisitor made any progress in the investigation?'
I suppose I should have expected it, especially after my suspicions about Orelius the
previous night, but I'd still been half inclined to dismiss them as the result of Divas
and his drunken fantasies getting lodged somewhere in my brain. I stared at Donali.
'You knew about this?' I murmured.
'I suspected,' he replied, sotto voce. 'But I didn't know for sure until Rakel turned up
this morning with a message bearing the inquisitorial seal.'
'What did it say?' I whispered, ignoring the young psyker's attempts to reply. Donali
shrugged.
'How should I know? It was addressed to the lord general.'
'The investigation continues. Yes.' Rakel nodded eagerly, forcing herself to
concentrate with a visible effort, her flat, nasal voice grating against my sleepdeprived nerves. 'You will be informed. When the conspiracy is exposed.' She paused,
cocking her head as though listening to something, and stood abruptly. 'Have you got
cake?' She wandered over to the food table to check.
'I see.' Zyvan tried to look as though she'd made some kind of sense.
'If I may, lord general,' I spoke up, trying to sound confident. 'I suspect that there may
be a faction here with an interest in provoking conflict between us and the tau.'
'So messire Donali informs me.' Zyvan seized the opportunity to return the meeting to
business with barely concealed relief. 'Which is the main reason I invited you to join
us. Your reasoning appears sound.'
'No cake. No frakking cake!' Rakel muttered in the background, scuffling around the
food table. 'I can't eat that, it's too green.'
'Thank you,' I acknowledged the compliment, and tried to ignore her.
'Does it extend as far as to who might be responsible?' Zyvan asked. I shook my head.
'I'm a soldier, sir. Plots and intrigue aren't really my specialties,' I shrugged. 'Perhaps
the inquisitor can enlighten us when his enquiries are complete.'
'Perhaps.' Zyvan looked a little disappointed, no doubt hoping I could have helped him
to second-guess the inquisition. Rakel returned to her seat, clutching a cinnamon bun,
which she proceeded to nibble at for the rest of the meeting, at least with her mouth
full she kept quiet.
'The other reason I wanted to consult you, commissar, is that you've met Governor
Grice. What's your assessment of his understanding of military matters?' I shrugged.
'About as good as his understanding of anything else, if I'm any judge. The man's an
imbecile.' More indrawn breaths around the table, but Zyvan and Donali nodded their
agreement.
'I thought as much,' the lord general said. 'Although you'll no doubt be gratified to hear
that he was very impressed with you.'
'He was?' I couldn't imagine why, until Donali spoke.
'After all, you did save his life last night.'
'I suppose I did,' I said. 'I hadn't really thought about it.' Which was perfectly true, I'd
disarmed the tau to save my own skin, and so much had happened since then it had
driven almost everything else out of my mind. Luckily, this was exactly the sort of
thing everyone expected me to say, so I had the unexpected pleasure of receiving a
warm smile of approval from one of the most powerful men in the Segmentum. Of
course, that would come back to haunt me in time, which only goes to prove that no
good deed ever goes unpunished.1
'Well, he's been thinking about you,' Donali said. 'He wants to give you some sort of
medal2
.'
'That may have to wait,' Zyvan said. 'We've a more urgent problem to deal with right
now.' He touched a control stud on the arm of his chair, and the surface of the table lit
up from within, proving to be a hololithic display of a size and resolution I'd seldom
seen before. If I'd realised, I'd have been a bit more careful with the teapot. I wiped the
ring of beverage away with my handkerchief as the image flickered drunkenly in the
air before me, finally steadying into decipherability as Zyvan leaned forward and
banged the tabletop hard with a clenched fist. He must have spent considerable time
with the techpriests, because it functioned perfectly after that, staying sharp and in
focus more than half the time.
'That's the city,' I said, stating the obvious. Rakel nodded, spraying crumbs across the
image like block-sized meteors.
'All the little people look like ants,' she said, resting her head on the tabletop. The
scale was far too small to show individual people, of course, or vehicles, even ones the
size of a Baneblade, but she was bonkers, after all. 'Scurry, scurry, scurry. Looking up
when they should be looking down. You never know what's under your feet, but you
should, 'cause you could trip up and fall.'
I ignored her, picking out the salient tactical information with the instinctive ease of
years of practice.
'There's still fighting going on,' I could see a handful of hotspots across the city.
'Haven't the Arbites managed to restore order yet?'
'Up to a point.' Zyvan shrugged. 'Most of the civilian rioters have either been arrested,
shot, or got bored and gone home. The big problem now is the rebel PDF units.'
'Can't the loyalists sort them out?' I asked. It seemed obvious from where we were
sitting that the xenoists were outnumbered at least three to one in most cases. Zyvan
looked disgusted.
'You'd think so. But they're bogging down. Half of them are refusing to fire on their
own comrades, and the rest might just as well not be bothering for all the good they're
doing.' He hesitated. 'So the governor has, in his infinite wisdom, petitioned the Guard
to go in and clean up his mess for him.'
'But you can't!' Donali was aghast. 'If the guard mobilise in the city the tau will too!
You'll spark the very war we're trying to prevent!'
'That hadn't escaped my notice,' Zyvan said dryly.
'The man's a cretin!' Donali was fuming. 'Can't he see the consequences of his
actions?'
'He's panicking,' I said. 'All he can see now is the prospect of the rebellion spreading.
If the xenoists in the general population join themó'
'We're frakked,' Donali said.
'Not quite.' Zyvan compressed his lips into a grim parody of a smile. 'I can still play
for time. Briefly. Can you use it to convince the tau that any Guard deployment in the
city is no threat to them?'
'I can try,' Donali said, without much enthusiasm. Zyvan nodded encouragingly.
'I can't ask for more than that.' He turned to me. 'Commissar. Would you say that the
tau have reason to trust you?'
Well of course they didn't, but that wasn't what he wanted to hear, so I nodded
judiciously.
'More than most other Imperial officers, I suppose. I did save them a bit of a walk last
night.' As I'd expected, my modest joking at my own expense went down well, fitting
these idiots' idea of a hero. Zyvan looked pleased.
'Good,' he said, and turned back to Donali. 'You can inform the tau that Commissar
Cain will be overseeing the operation personally. That might allay their concerns.'
'It just might.' Donali looked a little happier at the prospect. Which is more than I was,
you can be sure. After all I'd been through the night before, the prospect of being sent
back to the firing line again was agonising.
But I was supposed to be a hero after all, so I sat there impassively sipping tea, and
wondered how I was going to get out of this one.