The corpse inside the bag was human. The hair had been burned off, and it was uniformly the colour of rare steak, except for the cinder-pits of its eyes and the pearl wince of its teeth. Its arms were crossed over its shrunken breast.
‘Do you think you can save him?’ Valdyke asked.
‘Don’t be an idiot,’ Arbus replied.
Valdyke laughed and clattered out the second packet. This one was even more mutilated. Both corpses had dog-tags threaded around their ankles and secured through the seals of their shrouds.
Valdyke turned and looked at Eyl. Eyl was standing a way back, at the edge of the dock, with the widow and the two men, watching the work.
‘You got dead meat here, sir,’ said Valdyke. ‘Just dead meat. In fact, it looks like a regular shipment of cannon fodder back from the front line.’
‘No,’ said Eyl. ‘Look harder.’
Valdyke frowned, and then a smile spread across his face and became a leer.
‘Did you pack the front end with stiffs?’ he asked, jerking his thumb at the pod. ‘Is that what you did? You packed the front end with genuine stiffs, in case the container got inspected?’
‘No,’ the widow replied suddenly, speaking for the first time. ‘The bodies and blood, they are for the sealing ritual, or the casket won’t be–’
‘Hush, sister,’ said Eyl gently, patting her arm.
‘What did she say?’ asked Valdyke.
‘She said you’re right,’ said Eyl.
‘Sneaky,’ said Valdyke, nodding appreciatively. ‘Very sneaky, my friend.’
‘I’m not your friend,’ said Eyl.
Valdyke brushed that off with a shrug of his shoulders. He had no great desire to be the off-worlder’s pal either. He reached back into the container, and rattled out the third sack of meat.
‘Ah, damn,’ he said.
‘What?’ asked Eyl, taking a step closer.
‘This one’s gone too. Sorry, you must have had a pretty serious failure in the hiber systems. Face looks like it’s been gnawed off.’
‘Valdyke?’ Arbus whispered at his side.
‘What?’
‘This one’s alive.’
‘What?’ Valdyke turned and looked down at the body hanging in the stained sack. There was blood pooling in the slack parts of the polymer sheaf, and the poor bastard’s face and shoulders looked like someone had taken a razor blade to them.
‘That’s nonsense,’ Valdyke said.
Arbus shook his head. He was using a receptor wand to scan the body for trace levels.
‘The vitals are low, but they’re what I would associate with coming out of hibernetic suspension.’ He looked at Valdyke, and Valdyke saw something akin to terror lighting the wretched old quack’s eyes.
‘You’re reading it wrong, you old fool,’ Valdyke told him.
‘I’m not, I swear!’ Arbus replied. Then he let out an exclamation of horror, and recoiled from the hanging sack.
‘What?’ Valdyke cried.
‘The eyes! The eyes!’ the medicae stammered.
Valdyke looked back down at the body. Its eyes were open, slots of yellowed irises and small, black pupils staring filmily out of the bloody mask. They were staring right at him.
‘Holy Throne of Terra,’ Valdyke said, and stepped back. ‘What is this?’ he asked. He looked at Eyl. ‘What the hell is this?’
‘It is what it is,’ said Eyl. ‘The scars are ritual marks of allegiance. I don’t expect you to understand.’
Behind him, Valdyke could hear short, muffled gasps of breath, and the wet crackle of polymer sheathing as slippery weight moved around inside it. He heard scrabbling noises and the occasional hiss or thump from inside the pod.
‘I think I’ll be going now,’ Valdyke said.
Eyl shook his head. The widow started to shudder. Valdyke thought for a moment that she had burst into tears behind her veil, but then he realised she was sniggering.
Nado Valdyke yelled for his thugs. No one answered. When he turned to look, all four of his men were lying on the ground. They were lying in curiously slack, unnatural poses. Eyl’s two men were standing over them, hands limp by their sides, staring at Valdyke with their dog-eyes narrowed.
Valdyke spat an oath at them, and one of the men smiled back at him, baring his teeth. The teeth were pink. Blood flowed out over his lip.
Valdyke yelped and turned to run. He slammed into something solid, as solid as a wall. It was Eyl.
Valdyke scrambled at him, but Eyl felt like stone, cold and unrelenting. Eyl shoved him, a light shove that nevertheless felt like the impact of a wrecking ball.
Valdyke staggered backwards, breathlessly sure that some of his ribs had just parted. He felt entirely disorientated. Eyl suddenly had the packing knife that Valdyke had been using.
He put it through Valdyke’s throat, splitting the adam’s apple and driving the blade so deep that the tip poked out through the back of the neck under Valdyke’s hairline. Valdyke hung for a moment like a fish on a hook. His hands clenched and unclenched. His mouth gagged open as if he was gasping for air. Blood welled out over his chin. His eyes were shock-wide as he tried to cope with the massive pain, and tried to deal with the comprehension that he hadn’t just been hurt, he’d suffered a catastrophic injury that had destroyed his life, and which could not be repaired.
Eyl let him fall.
The medicae, Arbus, was cowering and sobbing beside the open container. He looked up as Eyl approached.
‘Please,’ he said, ‘please, are you going to kill me too?’
‘I need you to successfully revive my men,’ said Eyl, frankly.
‘A-and after that?’ Arbus sniffed.
Eyl did not reply.
‘What in the name of Terra are you?’ Arbus wailed.
Eyl looked down at him.
‘We are nothing in the name of Terra,’ he said. ‘We are Blood Pact.’
SIX
An Interview at Section
The grey brick mansion known as Section stood near the heart of the Oligarchy, and dominated both Avenue Regnum Khulan, which it peeped into over high walls and black railings on its western side, and the gardens of Viceroy Square, which it faced. Its official names were Viceroy House, or the Ministrative Officio of the Commissariat, Balopolis (Balhaut), but it was referred to by everyone as Section, which was shorthand for the highest local stratum of Commissariat authority.
It was not an inviting place. Second only to the manse of the ordos on Melkanor Street, it was the most dreaded building on Balhaut. It was part administrative hub, with whole floors devoted to bureaucratic activity, part courthouse, and part gaol. Though there were several penitentiary facilities in north-hemisphere Balhaut for the detention of military offenders, a lower level of Section contained a maximum security cell-block where the most sensitive prisoners were held.
Gaunt arrived before first light.
Though the chronometer on his wrist put the sun at less than five minutes away, there was no trace of dawn in the sky. Daybreak, the order despatch had said. He’d never been late for anything, and he was not going to start now.
He got out of the car. Over to the west, above the lights of the city, another lit city passed over head. It was like a brown thunderhead cloud moving against the night sky, speckled with lights, like a mirage, as if the sky was a still lake that was reflecting Balopolis beneath. It was one of the orbital docks, Highstation probably, gliding past on its cyclical turn, catching the sun earlier than the land below it.