Posing as an Imperial Chief Bookkeeper, our visit to the Magistratum was uneventful. After a few hours of discussion, we were promised a dataslate containing records of Abseradon’s tithes for the past three millennia, alongside population estimates and production estimates for the same period. The dataslate was scheduled to arrive at our Bird—I did not want to give away our hab’s location—in six days.
It did not wind up in our hands on the sixth day. After ten days, Okustin and I paid an uninvited return visit to the Magistratum. A few hours later, we got our dataslate. Zha could finally get to work. She had been eager to put her mind to something other than cataloguing the various chemical compositions she sniffed out of the air. Three thousand years of population and production data for a city whose known population numbered in the dozens of billions and churned out mass-quantities of biomass for advanced Imperial processing—an impossible task for any ordinary man, or even a team likewise, to even begin to comprehend.
Zha assured me she would sift through it all and have a report ready in a few weeks.
In the meantime, the rest of us found absolutely nothing to do to keep us occupied. Some of my crew asked Zha if they could help her with anything. A response never came. While focused on her work, it was near impossible to get her to think of anything else, including of her surroundings. She called it Computational Isolationism. We had spent a year and a half practicing to get her to react to my voice saying her name mid-computation. And let me tell you, finding enough material to keep Zha occupied for a year and a half for such practice had nearly emptied the Sector of data.
From time to time I thought of plumbing the depths of the Underhive for heretics I knew to be there, but thought it unwise. Not for my personal safety, mind you. But I did not want to draw undue attention to myself, both for the sake of this investigation nor from my colleagues in the Inquisition. Moreover, if I started snooping around in Scayn’s work, I ran the risk of stepping on his toes or, worse, endangering his operatives.
But as fate would have it, Scayn would find his way to me. Eighteen days after Zha began her work on the dataslate, and thus a full month since our arrival in Abseradon, proximity sensors placed around our hab triggered in the evening. Silas alerted me of the occurrence, though his instincts told him it was likely nothing. Xavier, on the other hand, believed otherwise. “We have a visitor,” he declared without prompt, drawing eyes upon him. His garnering attention was not uncommon, being a Primaris Psyker.
Several seconds passed. Then, a knock at the door. I wondered what the point of the proximity sensors was while we had Xavier’s presence. “Gao, you’re up,” Silas commanded, readying his lasgun—sorry, his Ryza-pattern Hellgun; he is often quite insistent I get that right—and flanked Czevia as she answered the door to the hab. Czevia opened the door barely enough to give Silas a clear shot, but not nearly enough to give our guest much of a view into the hab.
“Greetings—you are Ms. Czevia Gao, correct?” asked a slumrat. Even amongst the stench of the city, I could smell the origins of our visitor.
Curtly, Czevia replied, “Who’s asking?”
“Oh, polite of you to ask. My name is Val Eracian. You can call me Val,” said the young girl. From the tone of her voice, I guessed she was barely a teenager, if that. That didn’t imply too much—Underhive gangs employed child soldiers all the time. “But more promptly, I am a neighbor of Mr. Scayn. He asked me to find a Mr. Blackgar and give him this funny disc thing. It talks!” the girl exclaimed, and held out a hand holding a small voxcaster.
“I suppose that’s for me, then,” I grinned, stepping up to the scene. “Thank you both,” I told Czevia and Silas, putting a hand on their shoulders to have them stand down while I made for the door. I then knelt in front of Val, who as I suspected, was an unwashed, famished slumrat of a kid. “I’m Mr. Blackgar. Pleased to meet you, Ms. Eracian. Tell me, did Mr. Scayn tell you anything about tomorrow’s weather?”
“Funny you mention it, he did, as I was leaving!” she said excitedly. “He said it’d be raining. I do love the rain.”
“Thanks, he’s eerily good at predicting that, so I should imagine you’ll get to see some rain,” I replied, and her smile widened. This suggested she spent much of her time in the Underhives, where the endless rain of Abseradon perhaps did not find her often. I took the voxcaster from her. “Did you come here alone?”
“I did! I’m very good at navigating the streets down here. Mr. Scayn said I have a talent for it!” she nodded, still smiling happily.
“And did Mr. Scayn tell you where we were, or did you find out on your own?”
“He told me.”
“Ah,” I nodded, which still irked me all the same. Somehow, he knew where we had wound up, though I had until then been very confident in how we had covered our tracks. “Do you think you’ll be able to find your way home on your own, Ms. Eracian, or should I provide an escort for you?”
“Of course I know how to get home, silly! Hab 9 isn’t too far from here at all!” she replied, which put a grin on my face. On the one hand, Habblock 9 was actually some good distance from us—probably two hours, if we were trying to be subtle, which a child likely would not have been. On the other hand, now I knew where Scayn was, and he didn’t know I knew.
“Well, thank you very much for delivering this to me, Ms. Eracian. Here, for your efforts,” I started, reaching into my coat, and gave her a pair of thrones. It was likely more money that she would otherwise see in her lifetime, but a pittance to me. I would not have minded giving her more, but provide her with too much and questions start getting asked. Regardless, her eyes went wide with excitement, and happily scurried off after thanking me greatly.
“The big bad Inquisitor has such a way with kids,” Silas taunted as I turned back around, closing the door behind me.
“Shut up. Go reset the prox sensors,” I told him, and he nodded before heading off to do so. I then turned to the vox in my hand, and turned it on. “Endangering kids in our work seems beneath you, Thaddeus,” I said to it.
“Oh how naïve you are even still, Cal,” Scayn returned, laughing, his voice slightly garbled through the com. “That kid is likely safer on the streets than any of our lot would be. I do hope you gave her a good tip, as I taught you.”
“What do you want, Thaddeus? I’m very busy,” I told him, and could not help but to smirk at my blatant lie.
“Oh, we both know that savant of yours is doing the heavy lifting for you right now,” Scayn laughed. “I just wanted to reach out, friend to friend, is all.”
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
“Mhm.”
“Maybe invite you over for a drink?”
“Yeah? How’s the view?”
“Like a sunrise on Devin 7,” he replied. Among our various ciphers, such as asking Ms. Eracian about the weather, the sunrise of Devin 7 was another. It was a bit of a joke—there was no sun for Devin 7—its star had gone out millennia ago, and it was now a dead world. His providing the cipher told me he genuinely just wanted to meet, and was not being coerced. “If you’re so inclined, take the girl with you.”
“Eracian? She’s already left.”
“No, not my neighbor, you fool,” Scayn laughed. “Penitent. She’s never not by your side. I see no reason to separate you for a gathering of friends.”
“What is this really about, Thaddeus?”
“Just a social visit.”
“And if I say no?”
He paused. I sensed he had more to say—much more—but was holding his tongue over the vox channel that he worried—as I did—may have had other listeners. After a bit of hesitation, he replied, “I’d be sorely heartbroken.”
I paused from that response as well. There was no cipher to it. But it sounded genuine, and very melancholic. Most unlike my eccentric, eager mentor. I thought for a moment, then nodded to myself. “Can’t have that. I hope you have Gleece.”
“But of course, my friend!” Scayn exclaimed. “I’m in—”
“Habblock 9. Children, Thaddeus, tsk tsk,” I chided him. “See you in a few,” I added, then turned the vox off. I thought for a few moments, considering possible scenarios and methods of approach. Something was very obviously off. But if I brought my whole team to his hab, in the best case I’d blow his cover. In the worst case, his cover was already blown, and the both of us would be sitting ducks in our entirety. “Penitent!” I called through our hab. “Get your sword.”
“Cal?” she asked, arising from prayer.
“We’re going for drinks, you and I.” I then strolled through the hab to Okustin. “Have you been listening in?” I asked him, finding him toying with a vox-amplifier of his own.
“Every word, sir,” he nodded.
“If Penitent and I aren’t back in six hours, get the crew on the Bird and leave to orbit. I’ll Monitron Silas when I can, should it come to it,” I instructed him.
“And if you can’t?”
“Head to the Conclave off Quintus. Return with the Ordo, and let them take it from there,” I told him. Quintus was a largely unimportant, unassuming world. Which is why there was an Ordo Hereticus Conclave station in geostationary orbit above it, with a full fleet of supporting starcraft.
“Understood, sir,” he nodded.
***
Habblock 9 was like any other Habblock, though it was nearer to the Underhive—and thus more foul-smelling—than our own residency. Penitent and I made it there in just under two hours. We were careful, but there were not too many people on the streets, which was odd for a Hive City. On only one occasion, she and I needed play the part of lovers to shield our otherwise-militaristic presence (namely, her Eviscerator) from the view of some passerby on our journey—I had assumed we would have needed to do so more often. For a Sister Repentia, mouth-to-mouth contact was forbidden, and I was not about to violate her order’s beliefs, but we went through the motions as closely as she was willing to, which still proved closer than I had expected of her. The act proved passable enough to not draw us much attention. So we carried on.
Once at Habblock 9, finding Scayn’s specific hab—11B—was easy. It was the one with some subtle, unintrusive defenses and reconnaissance devices surrounding it. When you know what to look for from a friend, finding them is not hard. After a double-knock on the door, it opened to reveal a far more militarized and orderly setup than our hab featured. Two Guardsmen had their weapons trained on us immediately, and a third deeper in the room manned a heavy bolter installation pointed directly at the door.
I turned to Scayn, who was nearby and encouraging his troops to let us in, and asked, “Expecting someone else?”
“Rough neighborhood. Can’t be too careful,” he grinned. “Undertone,” he added, requesting we speak in code. He felt he was being listened to.
“Sure. You got my Gleece?” I nodded, stepping further into the hab. Penitent followed. Being a more senior Inquisitor, Scayn’s retinue numbered forty-four to my ten—myself included. He had six Interrogators to my one, of which I had already met Malkyle. Five others were working with Malkyle on some device I was unfamiliar with; Ordo Malleus stuff, I assumed. While Scayn’s private army certainly had a numbers advantage over mine, his was filled with very generic, ‘easy-pickings’ as I had once taunted him. Mine, on the other hand, was filled with more elite members of the Imperium, and if I had to bet on a survivor of a hypothetical rivalry between us, I was not much concerned.
“Just ran dry, I’m afraid,” he shook his head, but handed me a glass anyway. Undertone.
I took the glass and shrugged. “Shame. All this way for nothing.”
“I hear the sky is serving,” Scayn offered.
“Strange tidings,” I replied. He had suggested I pack my things and leave Abseradon; no, Hestia Majoris as a whole. I told him I did not understand. “Why not start there?”
“Didn’t think you’d receive.”
“And you think I will now?”
“Worth a shot,” he shrugged.
I paused for a minute, then set the glass of Gleece on a nearby table. “Who?”
Scayn tipped his head to the side and rolled his eyes, looking on at me with disappointment. He would not answer that.
“Well they must hold some brewing power, withholding my drink from you and all,” I suggested.
“They do. They don’t have the sky yet.”
“Yet?”
“Your questions are hard, my friend,” Scayn sighed. Hard meant dangerous.
“Hard questions for a hard day of work,” I shrugged. “You think they could get the sky?”
He nodded.
“How much?”
“Given the time? Probably from here to the wall, or more,” he replied. The wall was Cadia. Whoever had brought my friend to this state, he believed they could take everything between here and Cadia, and maybe even further. That was an impossible task. Not even the arch-enemy could manage that, and they had tried.
“Seems you should get some air,” I suggested, telling him to leave too.
“Nah, too much mud on my shoes. Gotta clean `em first,” he replied. He would be followed if he left. “Yours look clean, though. Don’t let me dirty them.”
Something in me snapped, the idea that my mentor was worried about me even then perhaps being too much for me to take well. +Who?+ I repeated, this time not uttering the question from my mouth. His hab felt it, felt me, my mind. The question would not have worked on Scayn, but maybe one of his Acolytes was both weaker-willed and privy to the info I sought.
“Blackgar!” Scayn shouted, fire in his eyes as he stepped up to me. “I think you should go,” he sneered, but all the same, a tear rolled down his left cheek. That infuriated me even more.
“Not without my drink,” I shot back. “Who should I ask for one?”
Scayn brought in one long, trying breath. Then exhaled. Then he seemed to change the subject. “How are your numbers looking?” He was asking about the task Zha was assigned to, which I had not even thought of since the call over the vox.
“Should tally up soon. Know what I should find at the end?”
“I have a hunch,” he shrugged.
I leaned in to Scayn and gave him a more direct message, one only he could hear. +Tell me.+ He shook his head. “You know me, my friend,” I warned him, and stepped away from him.
“All too well,” he nodded solemnly.
“I gotta get my drink somehow,” I laughed, but there was anger on my lips.
“Drinking habits can get people hurt,” he warned me in turn.
“What sort of people?”
“The ones close to you.”
“Do you drink?” I asked. He nodded. “I don’t feel too hurt.”
Not yet, he mouthed to me. “You should really see the sky, Cal. I’d be heartbroken if you didn’t. The city is…suffocating.”
I stared at him a long time, then. So long that Penitent tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I was alright. I nodded to her, then turned back to Scayn. “The heartbroken line only works once a night, friend. I’m gonna see if I can find an open bar. Really think you should get some air, Thaddeus.”
“Goodbye, Cal,” Scayn nodded to me, another tear rolling down his cheek. “Watch him, Penitent. He knows not of what he seeks,” he warned my bodyguard.
“I will, Inquisitor,” she nodded, and walked with me out of Scayn’s hab. A single step out of the door, and I paused to look up at the towering megalith that was Abseradon proper. Something impossibly sinister was here, right beneath my feet. Something so great in scope that it could scare the best Inquisitor I knew, and make him speak insanity like suggesting that a Hive a billion miles away could threaten Cadia. Were it some great and terrible daemon, it would have made some sense, perhaps. But a single creature of such magnitude would have been abundantly obvious to see. Such a thing could not be! Then again…
…Thaddeus Scayn had seen it.