The torc released with a delicate click and Iota felt a sudden rush of cold move through her, as if a floodgate inside her had opened. At least for the moment, she no longer needed to hold it all in, to keep the emptiness inside her bottled up.
Jun made a strange noise through the woman that was half-cry, half-yelp, and then the psychoactive matrix of the crown began to fizz and pop, the tonfa falling from the proxy’s nerveless fingers. With a disordered, tinkling peal, the psionic crystals in the headdress began to shatter and the woman tottered on her spiked heels, stumbling over herself to fall upon the bed. She made moaning, weeping sounds.
Iota cocked her head to listen; the same chorus of wailing was coming from room after room down the corridor of the change-brothel, as the nulling effect of her raw self spread out.
Before the link could fully die, she sprang onto the bed and brought her face to the anguished woman’s, staring into her eyes. ‘I want to kiss you,’ she told Jun.
Through the window, across the companionway from the brothel building, the doors of a nondescript residential slum block had broken open and a tide of panicked figures was spilling onto the street, all of them half-dressed in clothes that marked them too rich to be locals.
Iota nimbly leapt back to the floor and unfurled the stealthsuit lying beneath the skull-helm, stepping into it with careless ease. The mask went on last, and it soothed her as it did so.
The weeping woman coughed out a last, stuttered word as Jun’s hold on her finally disintegrated. ‘Cuh. Cuh. Culexus.’
But Iota did not wait to hear it; instead she threw herself through the window in a crash of glass and wood, spinning towards the other building.
While they waited for Gorospe, Yosef glanced around the landing pad’s surroundings. The fountains, which were usually gushing with coloured water, were silent; and when he looked closer, he noted that the well-tended gardens seemed, if anything, considerably unkempt. There were even dead patches in the otherwise flawless lawns; the Consortium appeared to be slacking on matters of minor maintenance. He wondered what that small detail could mean in the greater scheme of things.
Daig had made an attempt to engage one of the security men in conversation, resorting to his usual gambit of complaining about the weather, but the guard had been disinterested in talking. ‘Nice outfits they have,’ he opined, wandering back to the parked coleopter. ‘Do you think they have to buy their own uniforms?’
‘Considering a career change, then?’
Daig shrugged. ‘Or maybe a sabbatical. A very long one, to somewhere quiet.’ He glanced up into the sky, then away again.
Yosef sensed something in his cohort and found himself asking the question that had been preying on his mind for a time. ‘Do you think he will come here?’
‘The Warmaster?’
‘Who else?’ The air around them seemed suddenly still.
‘The Arbites say the situation will be dealt with by the Astartes.’ Daig’s manner made it clear he didn’t believe that.
Yosef frowned. Now he had asked the question, he found he couldn’t stop thinking about it. ‘I still find it hard to grasp. The idea of one of the Emperor’s sons plotting a rebellion against him.’ The concept seemed unreal, like the rain rebelling against the clouds.
‘Laimner says there is no mutiny at all. He says it’s a disinformation ploy by the Adeptus Terra to keep the planets out in the deeps off-balance, keep them loyal to the Throneworld. After all, a fearful populace is a compliant one.’
‘Our esteemed Reeve Warden is a fool.’
‘I won’t argue that point,’ Daig nodded. ‘But then, is that any more shocking than the idea that the Warmaster would turn against his own father? What possible reason could he have to do that, unless he has some sort of sickness of the mind?’
Yosef felt a chill move through him, as if a shadow had passed over the sun. ‘It’s not a matter of lunacy,’ he said, uncertain as to where the words were coming from. ‘And fathers can be fallible, after all.’
He caught a flash of irritation on Daig’s face. ‘You’re talking about ordinary men. The Emperor is far more than that.’
Yosef considered an answer, but then his attention was drawn away by the return of the Gorospe woman. Her carefully prepared expression of superior neutrality had been replaced by a severe aspect, concern and irritation there in equal measure. He had to wonder what she had found to instigate so profound a shift in her manner. She held the data-slate in her hand, along with a page of vinepaper. ‘You have something for us?’ he asked.
Gorospe hesitated, then tersely dismissed the two security men. When it was just the three of them, she gave the lawmen a firm stare. ‘Before we go any further, there are a number of assurances that I must have from you. No information will be forthcoming if you refuse any of the following conditions, is that understood?’
‘I’m listening,’ said Yosef.
She ticked off the stipulations on her long, elegantly manicured fingers. ‘This meeting did not occur; any attempt to suggest it did at a later date will be denied and may be considered an attempt at slander. Under no account are you to refer to the method in which this information was brought to you in any official records of investigation, now or at a later date in any legal setting. And finally, and most importantly, the name of the Eurotas Trade Consortium will in no way be connected to the suspect of your investigation.’
The two men exchanged glances. ‘I suppose I have no choice but to agree,’ said Yosef.
‘Both of you,’ she insisted.
‘Aye, then,’ said Daig, with a wary nod.
Gorospe handed back the data-slate and unfolded the vinepaper. On it, Yosef saw file text and an image of a thuggish man with heavy stubble and deep-set eyes. ‘There was a match between the blood trace you provided and a single subject listed in our biomedical records. His name is Erno Sigg, and he is known to be at large on Iesta Veracrux.’
Yosef reached for the paper, but she held it away. ‘He was a passenger on one of your ships?’
When the woman didn’t answer straight away, Daig made the connection. ‘That’s a bondsman’s record you have there, isn’t it? Sigg isn’t a passenger. He works for you.’
‘Ah,’ nodded Yosef, suddenly understanding. ‘Well, that clears the mist, doesn’t it? The last thing the Void Baron would want is the good name of his clan being connected to a murderous psychotic.’
‘Erno Sigg is not an employee of the Consortium,’ Gorospe insisted. ‘He has not been a member of our staff for the last four lunars. His bond and his shares were cancelled in perpetuity with the clan, following an… incident.’
‘Go on.’
The woman glanced at the paper. ‘Sigg was cashiered after a violent episode on one of the Consortium’s deep space trading stations.’
‘He stabbed someone.’ Yosef tossed out the guess and the widening of her eyes told him he was right. ‘Killed them?’
Gorospe shook her head. ‘There was no fatality. But a… a weapon was used.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘We have no record of that.’
Daig’s lip curled. ‘So you decided to throw him out, just dump a violent offender on our planet without so much as a warning to the local law enforcement? I think I could find a judiciary who would classify that irresponsible endangerment.’
‘You misunderstand. Sigg was released after a period of detention commensurate with the severity of his misbehaviour.’ Gorospe looked at the paper again. ‘According to notations made by our security staff, he was genuinely remorseful. He voluntarily went into the custody of a charitable rehabilitation group here on Iesta Veracrux. That’s why he asked to be released on this planet.’