To Holbech’s mind he hadn’t quite achieved his potential — it was a thought that occupied his mind every night after a long shift, as he remembered his performance in the distant guild examinations or recalled the time he’d imagined himself competing for a seat on the Schedulists councils, or the wardenship of a major traffic node, or — and why should he not have dreamt of it? — the speakership itself.
Holbech took a long draught of his semi-palatable cocktail, and looked out miserably across the little realm he had been able to secure for himself. The stipend for a journeymaster was substantial by objective standards, for he was responsible for the safe berthing of hundreds of cargo-haulers every day, and yet still his hab-space was no more than ten square metres, two-thirds of the way up the decent zones of a middling spire complex on the edge of the mundane Salvator zone. He looked with regret at the things he had collected — the cheap vases, the parchment records of obsolete vessel-types stacked in bundles, the chairs, the tables, the broken vid-relayer with its data sets of Missionaria improvement sessions.
Then he saw the man sitting in the shadows, under the window, with the laspistol aimed at his head, and froze.
‘Good evening, journeymaster,’ said Maldo Revus, staying just where he was.
Holbech considered doing something, but not for very long. His antique Haus revolver was safely stowed in a drawer next to his cot, and even if he had had it by his side, he guessed that it wouldn’t do much against his visitor, who was wearing a quite brutal amount of armour.
‘How did you get in here?’ Holbech asked, impressing himself with the relative lack of panic in his voice.
‘The same way I get in everywhere. How was your day?’
Holbech felt a trickle of sweat run down his fat, shaved temple. ‘I have no coin here.’
‘You have plenty, much more than your stipend allows for. If I were here to take it, though, I would already have done so, so you should ask yourself again, why I am still here?’
Holbech began to speculate. The level of corruption in his subsector processing node was probably a little below average, and in any case implicated a regional judge, so there was little to grasp at. There had been that sordid business with the trainee menials two years ago, but that was the kind of weakness overlooked by all but the most fastidious of priests, and the man before him was no priest.
‘I do not-’
‘What work do your cadres do, journeymaster?’
Surely all knew this. ‘The usual business.’
‘Enlighten me.’
‘Processing lifters entering the Triad port zone. Bulkers, void-haulers, some pilgrim transports. Three hundred standard crew, all screened, all Astra-conditioned. No problems, no difficulties.’
‘Good to hear. I am an efficient man myself, journeymaster. It is good to meet a like mind.’
‘I am… glad you think so.’
‘Now think harder. Think about your signals staff, those at quintus grade.’ Holbech thought. ‘I have seventy-four-’
‘Are you missing any, journeymaster?’
‘You know it’s an Adeptus-level offence for me to give menial data out,’ said Holbech, warily.
‘And you know that I care less than nothing for your offence.’
‘I thought this was all done with. I thought Phaelias had what he wanted
and the matter was closed.’
‘It’s not closed.’
Holbech started to become exasperated. He was not a mere nobody; he was a registered member of the Adeptus Terra, one of the exalted citizens of the eternal Imperium, and that gave him rights.
But then he looked at the man’s expression — just like the woman who had come before, the one who had spoken strangely and had those brown eyes that never blinked. Throne, where did they get these people?
‘You’ve been sent by Phaelias?’ Holbech asked.
‘Don’t worry where I’m from. Tell me about the scribe.’
‘It was days ago. I thought it was done with. I told the last one that he’d not turned up to his station for two duty-cycles, and that I had informed the superior and the communal dorm-master. That was it. I’m not his registered guardian, and I didn’t take the matter further. Sometimes people go missing. They say that there’s something loose in the underhives in Malliax, and perhaps that got him. Who knows? There are some bad people in this world. No doubt you know a few.’
‘His name?’
‘Hieron Valco. Of the Ketan-Theta lower combine.’
‘How long had he worked here?’
‘Two years. I barely knew him. No problems on his report-slate. He was diligent. He reported anything anomalous on the schedules, and that saved me a lot of grief.’
‘His task was to monitor the landing of ships? Pilgrim transports, lifters?’ ‘Most of the time. And he had to scan the records and scrub them of errors before submitting to the archives.’
Revus never moved his hand — it remained as still as if moulded in rockcrete. ‘Did he report anything of note before he disappeared?’
‘There are always errors. A big lifter touches down on a Triad platform every twenty seconds, twenty-four hours a day, and there are sixteen platforms in our jurisdiction. Everything is logged, then placed into Archive Gothic, then transcribed onto vellum by the scholiasts before being taken down to the scriptorium for storage. We have to check the schedules against the berthing records, compare the manifests, check for security alerts-’
‘Your work must be very fulfilling. How can I access the documents worked on by him?’
Holbech began to lose his fear again, and felt his drink warming up unsatisfactorily. ‘See, I thought you had already taken this information. The woman was insistent that-’
‘Remind me.’
‘You can’t get them. The scrolls were quarantined by the arbitrators after I reported him missing. I don’t know where they took them after that, but it’s given us pain, as the Schedulists are demanding reconstitution of the missing archive lists, and of course we can’t do it.’
‘Which judge sanctioned that?’
‘You think I asked them? Might as well ask which one sanctioned you coming here and poking guns at innocent men.’
Revus thought for a moment. ‘When did we last make contact with you?’ ‘You don’t know that?’
‘Answer the damn question.’
‘Four days ago. Like I said, I thought this was all-’
‘You’ve been helpful, journeymaster. That will be all.’
Holbech dared to take a sip of his drink. Warmed-up, it was even fouler than usual. ‘Nothing else?’
‘If I think of anything, you’ll know. One more thing — I was not here, we did not have this conversation.’
Holbech snorted. ‘Or you’ll file a report to the judges, eh?’
‘Something like that.’
Revus rose, moving out into the open, and for the first time Holbech caught a glimpse of just how powerfully built the man was — tall, bulky, his savage face a mass of scar tissue and tattoos. Holbech swallowed, and found his throat dry.
‘What’s this all about, then?’ he asked.
‘I ask the questions,’ Revus said, holstering his sidearm and walking to the hab-unit entrance. He pulled the door open and left, without giving a backward glance.
For a few moments Holbech sat, his heart still beating too hard, his armpits sweatier than before. He drank again, then again, until the glass was empty. Then he looked up again, back at the cityscape vista, the crooked spires glowing under a dirty sky.
‘Throne, I hate this place,’ he breathed.
CHAPTER SIX