I batted this back and forth for the rest of a long afternoon and when I returned to my dormitory bed, Ivan was waiting.
‘How goes it, Sergeant Lemuel?’ Ivan asked with mocking politeness. I slumped down on my bed. I could not help but notice that his prosthetic arm was dented and that the motors whined even more than usual when he used it. He regarded me steadily through one normal eye and one bionic. It was a trick he used to great effect when playing cards.
‘Could be better, could be worse,’ I replied. ‘Anton could be here.’
‘Don’t let him hear you say that. And in all seriousness, he spent more time by your side than I did when you were unconscious.’
‘How long was I out?’ I was curious now.
‘Almost a week. For a long time there it was touch and go. The medicae thought you were lost a dozen times. That’s what they told me.’
‘Anton told me that you’re guarding the space port.’
‘He told you more than he should have then.’
‘You know what he’s like. Can’t keep a secret.’
‘Don’t tell anybody else you know. The Lord High Commander is in a bad enough mood anyway.’ Macharius was not normally a man to lose his temper. He was brilliant at concealing his emotions no matter how badly things went. Or he had been until recently.
‘Any particular reason?’
‘Any number of them. Take your pick.’
‘What would I be choosing from?’ I could see what he was up to now. He was going to make me work for any information I got out of him.
‘The crusade is bogged down on half a dozen war-fronts.’
‘That’s happened before. It will recover momentum eventually.’
‘There’s some sort of conclave of generals scheming to replace him.’
‘There’s always some underling seeking glory.’
‘These ones have the backing of the Administratum, or so Macharius thinks.’ That was not good news. Macharius had a number of powerful enemies among the bureaucrats who ran the Imperium. It was almost inevitable. For most of the past couple of decades he had been the most powerful man in known space. That caused a lot of friction. ‘With everything that has gone wrong they might just be in a position to pull him down. Macharius has a ship on standby to take him to Acheron. That’s where the generals are supposed to be meeting with their supporters.’
‘I would have thought he would have been gone by now. It’s not like him to let any challenge go unopposed.’
Ivan let out a long sigh. ‘There’s still the challenge here on Loki. He’s still obsessed with beating Richter. He won’t give up this world.’
‘He might not have any choice, from what I’ve seen.’
‘Don’t let him hear you say that,’ said Ivan. ‘He has not been kind to those who preach defeatism. That’s what he calls it.’
‘He’s never had any problem with the truth before.’
‘Well, he does now. You can’t say you haven’t been warned.’ Ivan placed a careful emphasis on his words. He wanted me to understand that he was serious. I felt suddenly very tired and I think that weariness showed on my face.
‘Things have changed, Leo,’ Ivan said. ‘He’s not the man he once was. You’ll see when you recover.’
‘I’m not sure I want to recover if things are the way you say.’ I sounded petulant and childish and I knew it. I could not help myself though. I was sick and physically weak and I was beginning to be very frightened.
I had another visitor soon after, although she did not come in the guise of such. I was lying on the bed, listening to the coughing and the screams of pain when a Sister Hospitaller was suddenly standing over me. Her features were very familiar. It was Anna.
‘I thought I saw you before,’ I said. She smiled at me enigmatically.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said.
‘I saw you giving me the serum.’
‘No such serum is available on this world,’ she said. Her face was utterly bland. I knew she was capable of lying with a completely straight face – she would not blink and her pulse rate would not change. Her entire body had been rebuilt to make her capable of such deceptions and far more.
‘I know it was you,’ I said. I was certain it had been, too, although I could not say why. My senses had been highly unreliable of late.
‘Whether it was or it wasn’t,’ she said, ‘I am glad you are all right.’
And that was as close to an admission as I was ever going to get from her. ‘Why are you here?’ I asked. I wondered if she had been sent to kill Richter. After all, one assassin can succeed where an entire army might not. And the rogue general must be a prime target.
‘You should know better than to ask me that by now,’ she said. She was mopping my brow. It made her look more like a Hospitaller, I suppose, but it made me shiver. It was something between us that she never seemed to lie to me directly, or maybe that was just the impression she wanted to give. I have never been sure.
‘You’re supposed to say you came to see me,’ I said.
‘I did. Today at least.’
‘I’m glad you did.’
‘Your friends have visited you often.’
‘You could have done so too. They would not be able to recognise you if you did not want them to.’
‘I have been busy, Leo.’
‘People have been dying unexpectedly, have they?’
‘I do more than kill people,’ she said. It was almost as if I had criticised her. I have no idea why she should feel offended; she had no more conscience about murder than a cat has about killing mice. ‘I gather intelligence. I report it.’
‘So you have been gathering intelligence then?’ I said.
‘You are an exasperating man.’
‘Apparently so.’
‘Yes. I have been gathering intelligence.’
‘And you cannot tell me about it.’
‘What would you have me tell you?’ She was looking at me directly now and I felt as if, just for a moment, I could ask her anything and I might get an honest reply. There was an unguarded look in her eyes, or so it seemed to me. I looked at her for a long time and the moment passed, and she seemed to be wary of everything and everybody once more.
‘Are you comfortable here?’ she asked.
I looked around ironically at the wounded and the dying. ‘It’s better than where I was before,’ I said. She tilted her head to one side and studied me very intently. She seemed to hear something more in my words than I had intended to put there.
‘You are frightened,’ she said. ‘That is not like you. Why?’
I told her about the dreams. I told her about Zachariah. I told her about the things I had heard. I told her I was starting to doubt my own sanity. While I told her this she held my hand; when someone walked by she appeared to be taking my pulse.
As I spoke, she nodded, as if I were confirming things that she already knew. It was a way she had. Maybe she did already know. Maybe it was just her method of encouraging me to speak. It certainly worked – I babbled as if I had somehow been injected with truth serum. Only later did I wonder if perhaps I had been.
Once I had finished speaking, she said, ‘Speak of these things to no one. Your companion, Zachariah, if companion he was, was correct about that. There are matters here that could get you killed if the wrong person learns of them.’
‘Drake,’ I said. The inquisitor could read my thoughts if he chose to.
‘He has his mind on other things just now.’
‘Why do I need to worry about these dreams?’ I wanted to know and she seemed to be in a position to tell me, even if it was foolish to ask.
‘We have come too far,’ she said. ‘Into a place where Chaos seeps through. It is very strong here. What Zachariah told you is essentially correct.’