Gibran snapped on his desk lumen. Dovrian was Gibran’s fifth cousin, three times removed, the product of three generations of marriage planning that had brought about a fruitful alliance between House Gibran and House Ofar. Careful breed matches meant his genetic code was predominately that of House Ofar, and as such would have looked freakish to standard human eyes. Spindle-limbed and willowy-tall, his skin had a bluish cast and an uncomfortable translucency that hinted at the squirmings of the muscles beneath. His third eye was bound with red cloth, as was House Ofar’s custom. Discreet hydraulic calipers aided his movement, for the Ofars were void-adapted, force-bred for service on Rogue Trader ships, ultra-light packet ships and other far-ranging vessels. The Ofar palaces were in an orbital habitat around Jupiter, and they seldom ventured anywhere that had more than one-quarter Terran gravity, including the manned decks of the vessels they guided.
Dovrian was reckoned of uncommon strength among his clan for the fact he could walk on Terra at all. It was this physical attribute that the Gibran blood had contributed, and as planned, it was also why he had been chosen as the Ofarn Ambassador to the Court of the Paternova. The plan had been to create an Ofar who was of Gibran descent to support House Gibran in the byzantine politics of the Quarter, but good breeding only went so far in determining the traits of an individual Navigator. In a society fond of high living and displays of wealth, Dovrian Ofar had a reputation as a rake, and so teetered alarmingly on the knife blade between asset and liability.
He was, however, good company, and he knew his drink. In his hand he carried an octagonal bottle of Europan salt brandy, a particular favourite of Gibran’s.
‘A gift to welcome you home.’
‘I will not be staying long in the Quarter,’ said Gibran. ‘There is too much to do.’ He waved his over-large hand at the piles of documents on his desk.
‘I can see.’ Dovrian’s exoskeleton hissed as he came closer. ‘May I? Terra’s pull is a burden on my limbs I haven’t yet grown accustomed to.’
Gibran nodded. Dovrian dragged over a chair and sat. ‘That is better. I miss the void.’
‘Me also, and my yearnings grow deeper of late.’ Gibran fetched two glasses and set them down in front of his cousin. ‘Come on then, pour. When I do not complete this work, I can blame you.’
‘Ah, I knew I had a use.’ Dovrian uncorked the brandy and poured it. The sharp, briny smell of it prickled Gibran’s tastebuds.
‘To your health.’ Dovrian raised his glass in salutation.
Gibran drank. The brandy was fine, very fiery and salty.
Dovrian put his own glass down untouched and topped up Gibran’s glass.
‘Drink up, cousin, you never know which will be your last day. These have been testing times for us all.’
‘Praise the Emperor to that!’ said Gibran. He downed the brandy in one gulp and gasped appreciatively, a delightful tremor travelling up his spine from his stomach to his shoulders.
‘Any day these last months could have been your last, my last, the last day for everyone.’ Dovrian gave a mirthless chuckle. ‘We came this close.’ He held up his long, mutant’s fingers, thumb and forefinger a hair’s breadth apart. He smiled again, equally without humour.
‘You are not drinking?’ said Gibran.
‘No. I am not drinking.’ He pushed the glass away from him with his long fingers. ‘Helad,’ he said after moment, ‘the Paternova is displeased.’
The glass paused at Gibran’s lips. ‘How displeased?’
The delightful tremor did not stop, but increased and turned painful. Gibran’s shoulder shook. He set the glass down on the desk. His hands trembled so much he knocked it over. It fell with a muffled thud on the thick carpet, staining it with the sticky liquid.
‘You have poisoned me!’
‘I have,’ said Dovrian.
‘But, but you cannot take my place.’
‘I can, and I will. Lord Vangorich has made a pact with the Paternova. It is settled.’
‘How… how did he speak with him without going through me?’ Gibran said. Seven hundred years of life and decades of staring into the warp had rendered him immune to fear, so he thought. He had been wrong.
Dovrian spread his hands apologetically. ‘I provided the conduit. It was a risk to me to even attempt it, but your performance has been so woeful I was confident of success. The price for my ascension is your death. I am sorry. I am fond of you. It is nothing personal.’
‘You traitor, you…’ Gibran reached under his desk with weak hands for his pistol. The holster was empty. His throat constricted. He stood, his legs almost buckling.
‘Why?’ he croaked. ‘Your strain is not even gravity adapted. Living here will kill you.’
‘You are gravity adapted, but life here has still killed you.’
‘Your every day will be agony.’
‘Perhaps, but I am marooned here anyway. You made me to suffer. Power will dull my pain.’
Gibran spluttered and choked. He could barely breathe. ‘Erdacian. Erdacian!’ His voice was a painful whisper.
With the last of his strength he stumbled drunkenly towards the doors, forcing them open by falling against them. He staggered out onto the balcony. It was empty. His servants had deserted him.
Choking on frothing sputum that tasted of blood, Helad Gibran fell to the floor. Dovrian stood over him. Gibran tugged with nerveless fingers at his warp eye cover, hoping to reveal it and blast Dovrian with the fell energies it contained. But the scarf would not come loose, and his hand ceased to obey his brain. He slid to the floor, his limbs loose as string.
‘I am now the Paternoval Envoy to the Senatorum Imperialis,’ said Dovrian. ‘The youngest in all history. Can you imagine?’
Gibran was past hearing. Dovrian stepped over his twitching corpse. A new world order was dawning.
Juskina Tull sat limply in her bedchamber as her handmaid Anastay brushed her hair. She no longer took pleasure in the murals on her walls. Representing four-fifths of Imperial territory, they were huge spacescapes, the nebulae and planetary systems on them gleaming by cunning means, each celestial body shifting as the hours of the day passed to represent their position in the heavens relative to one another. Where perspective and positioning permitted a view of the stars as they were seen from Terra, fanciful beasts curled around the points of light, drawn from the dozens of zodiacs dreamed up across the ages. Humanity had always looked to the stars and dreamed, even in the worst of times. At night, when she lay in bed, the murals made it seem as if she floated through space. It had been a marvellous feeling.
If she wished, she could call up the positions of Chartist ships in the areas depicted, so the murals served a purpose partway between art and strategic tool. She had always preferred them as art, spending long hours staring into abyssal depths, picking out the stars of the worlds she had visited. It was her meditation, her way of purging the cares of the day and focusing on what she was, the mistress of the free merchant fleets of the Imperium.
Now they gave her only shame. The dark between the pinpricks of distant suns held an unquenchable terror, and yet still she could not stop looking.
Her nights were full of the screams of dying men and women, crushed upon the ork attack moon. She hadn’t been on the surface, but she could imagine. During the day her mind was troubled by flashes of bloodied faces and screaming orks. She had been one of the lesser players of the great Imperial game, but an enthusiastic one. No more. Her mind was numbed with horror. She stifled a sob.
Anastay ran the brush through her hair.
‘Hush, mistress, be still, be calm. We are nearly done. Am I hurting you?’
Tull wanted to speak, but she was deep in sorrow. She shook her head mutely.
‘Put aside your cares then.’
Hiss, hiss, shush shush, went the brush.