Necropolis (16 page)

Dorden dug his thumb into a pressure point at the base of the man’s palm and the addict dropped his knife anyway. The rusty weapon clattered to the floor and Curth kicked it aside.

Dorden increased his chokehold for a fraction of a second, enough for the man to black out, and then dropped him facedown onto an empty cot. Orderlies hurried up.

“Restrain him. Give him the lomitamol, but restrain him all the same.”

He turned to Curth. “This is a war now, you know. You should have guards in here. Things get dangerous during wars, even behind the lines.”

She nodded. She was shaking. “Thank you, Dorden.”

“Glad to help. I was coming to find you. Come on.” He picked up a clutch of data-slates and paper forms he had dropped in order to engage the man, and he led her by the arm down the length of the ward to the exit.

In the cool of the corridor outside, she paused and leaned against the stone wall, taking deep breaths.

“How long have you been working? You need rest,” Dorden said.

“Is that a medical opinion?”

“No, a friend’s.”

She looked up at him. She had still to get the measure of this off-worlder, but she liked him. And he and his Tanith medics had been the backbone of the combat triage station.

“You’ve been up as long as me. I saw you working at midnight last night.”

“I nap.”

“You what?”

“I
nap.
Useful skill. I’d rate it slightly higher than suturing. I know all the excuses about there being no time for sleep. I’ve used them myself. Hell, I’ve been a doctor for a lot of years. So I learned to nap. Ten minutes here, five there, in any lull. Keeps you fresh.”

She shook her head and smiled.

“Where do you nap?” she asked.

He shrugged. “I’ve found there’s a particularly comfortable linen cupboard on the third floor. You should try it. You won’t be disturbed. They never change the beds in this place anyway.”

That made her laugh. “I… thank you for that.”

He shrugged again. “Learn the lessons, Surgeon Curth. Make time to nap. Trust your friends. And never turn your back on an obscura addict with a rusty knife.”

“I’ll remember,” she said over-solemnly.

They walked down the hallway together, passing two crash-teams racing critical cases to the theatre.

“You were coming to find me?”

“Hmm,” he said, reminded, sheafing through the documents he was carrying. “It’s nothing, really. You’ll think it stupid, but I have a thing about details. Another lesson, if you’re in the mood for more. Take care of the details, or they’ll bite you on the bloody arse.”

He stopped, looked at her and coloured. “My apologies. I’ve been in the company of foul-mouthed soldiers for too long.”

“Accepted. Tell me about this detail.”

“I was in Intensive Ward 471/k, reviewing the situation. They are mostly inhab citizens up there, injured in the first raid. We’ve got blast wounds, shrapnel-hits, burn-cases, crush-injuries — a world of bad stuff, actually. They were all in the Commercia district when the bombs fell. Specifically,” he consulted the slates, “Carriage Station C4/a and the eastern barter houses.”

She took the slate from him. “Well?”

“I was checking to see if any could be discharged or at least moved to a non-intensive ward to make room. There are maybe twelve who could be shifted to the common wards.”

“Well?” she repeated. “Was that it? An administrative suggestion?”

“No, no!” he said and leafed to another sheet. “I told you the sort of injuries we were getting up there: mostly from the shelling, a few from panic stampedes. But there were two others, both in comas, critical. I… I was wondering why they had gunshot wounds?”

“What?” She snatched the slates and studied them closely.

“Small calibre, maybe a needle gun. Easy to mistake it for shrapnel wounding.”

“It says ‘glass lacerations’ here. The station canopies all blew out and—”

“I know a needle-gun wound when I see it. And I’m seeing over a dozen shared between the two of them. They were shot at close range. I checked the records. Twelve others were brought in from the same site with identical wounds. But they were all dead on arrival.”

“This is the Commercia?”

“A subtransit station: C7/d. Not actually hit by direct shelling, so the records state. But there were at least twenty bodies recovered there.”

She read the forms again and then looked up at him.

“You’re thinking what I’m thinking, aren’t you?” he smiled. “Hundreds of thousands, dead and dying, all needing us and I’m worried about just two of them. I shouldn’t care how they were hurt, just that they need me.”

She paused. “Yes, I am thinking that… but…”

“Ah: ‘but’. Useful word. Why were they shot? Who was opening fire on helpless citizens in the middle of a raid?”

Despite her hours on duty, Ana Curth was suddenly awake again. Dorden was right: this was small compared to the scale of the general human misery in Vervunhive. But it could not go unmarked. The Scholam Medicalis had trained her to value every single life individually.

“Vervunhive is being murdered,” she said. “Most of the murderers are out there, wearing ochre armour. Some, I have to say, are sitting pretty around the chart tables in House Command. But there is another — and we will find him.”

Gaunt straightened his cap, smoothed the folds of a clean leather jacket and left his escort of six Tanith troops at the elevator assembly. The escort, led by Caffran, stood easy, gazing around themselves at the lofty, gleaming architecture of the upper Spine. None of them had ever expected to see the inside of a hive’s noble level.

“Even the fething lift has a carpet!” Trooper Cocoer hissed.

Gaunt looked round. “Stay here. Behave yourselves.”

The Ghosts nodded, then congregated around an ornamental fountain where foamy water bubbled from conches held by gilt nymphs into a lily-skinned, green pool. Some of the Ghost guard rested their lasguns against the marble lip. Gaunt smiled to see Caffran check that the seat of his pants was clean before sitting on the marble.

So out of place, he thought as he left them with a last look, six dirty dog-soldiers, fresh from battle, in the middle of the serene vaults of the worthy and powerful.

He paced down the length of the promenade, his shiny boots hushing into the blue carpeting. The air was perfumed and gentle plainsong echoed from hidden speakers. The vault above was glass, supported by thin traceries of iron. Trees, real trees, grew in the centre beds of the long hall and small, bright songbirds fluttered through the branches. This is the privilege of power, Gaunt thought.

The great doors, crafted from single pieces of some vast tree, stood before him, the crest of House Chass raised in varnished bas-relief on their front. Ivy traces clad the walls to either side and small, blue flowers budded from fruit trees in the avenue that led to the doorway. He took out the token-seal and fitted it into a knurled slot in the door lock.

The great doors swung inwards silently. There was a fanfare of choral voices. He stepped inside, entering a high vault that was lit blue by the light falling through stained-glass oriels high above. The walls were mosaics, depicting incidents and histories that were unknown to him. The Chass crest was repeated at intervals in the mosaic.

“Welcome, honoured visitor, to the enclave of House Chass. Your use of a token emblem signifies you to be an invited and worthy guest. Please wait in the anteroom and refreshments will be sent while his lordship is informed of your arrival.”

The servitor’s voice was smooth and warm, and it issued from the air itself. The great doors hushed closed behind Gaunt. He removed his cap and gloves and set them on a teak side table.

A second later, the inner doors opened and three figures entered. Two were house guards dressed in body armour identical to that of the one who had accosted Gaunt outside the Privy Council. They had satin shrouds over their handweapons and nodded to him stiffly. The third, a female servitor, her enhancement implants and plugs made of inlaid gold, carried a tray of refreshments on long, silver, jointed arms which supplemented her natural limbs.

She stopped before Gaunt. “Water, joiliq, berry wine, sweetmeats. Please help yourself, worthy guest. Or if nothing pleases you, tell me, and I will attend your special needs.”

“This is fine,” Gaunt said. “A measure of that local liquor.”

Holding the salver with her extra arms, the female servitor gracefully poured Gaunt a shot of joiliq into a crystal glass and handed it to him.

He took it with a nod and the servitor withdrew to the side of the room. Gaunt sipped the drink thoughtfully. He was beginning to wonder why he had come. It was clear there was a universe of difference between himself and Chass. What could they have in common?

“To be here you must have been invited, but I do not know you.”

Gaunt turned and faced a young noblewoman who had entered from the far side of the anteroom. She wore a long gown of yellow silk, with a fur stole and an ornate headdress of silver wire and jewels. She was almost painfully beautiful and Gaunt saw cunning intelligence in her perfect face.

He nodded respectfully, with a click of his heels.

“I am Gaunt, lady.”

“The off-world commissar?”

“One of them. Several of my stripe arrived with the Guard.”

“But you’re the famous one: Ibram Gaunt. They say the People’s Hero Kowle was beside himself with rage when he heard the famous Gaunt was coming to Vervunhive.”

“Do they?”

The girl circled him. Gaunt remained facing the way he was.

“Indeed they do. War heroes Kowle can manage to stomach, so they report, but a commissar war hero? Famous for his actions on Balhaut, Fortis Binary, the Menazoid Clasp, Monthax? Too much for Kowle. You might eclipse him. Vervunhive is large, but there can be only one famous, dashing commissar hero, can’t there?”

“Perhaps. I’m not interested in rivalry. So… you’re versed in recent military history, lady?”

“No, but my maids are.” She smiled dangerously.

“Your maids have taken an interest in my record?”

“Deeply, you and your — what was it they said? Your ‘scruffy, courageous Ghost warriors’. Apparently, they are so much more exciting than the starchy Volpone Bluebloods.”

“That I can vouch for,” he replied. Though she was lovely, he had already had enough of her superior manner and courtly flirting. Responding to such things could get a man shot.

“I’ve six scruffy, courageous Ghost warriors right outside if you’d like me to introduce them to your maids,” he smiled, “or to you.”

She paused. Outrage tried to escape her composed expression. She contained it well. “What do you want, Gaunt?” she asked instead, her tone harder.

“Lord Chass summoned me.”

“My father.”

“I thought so. That would make you…”

“Merity Chass, of House Chass.”

Gaunt bowed gently again. He took another sip of the drink.

“What do you know of my father?” she asked crisply, still circling like a gaud-cock in a mating ritual.

“Master of one of the nine noble houses of Vervunhive. One of the three who opposed General Sturm’s tactical policy. One who took an interest in my counterproposals. An ally, I suppose.”

“Don’t use him. Don’t dare use him!” she said fiercely.

“Use him? Lady—”

“Don’t play games! Chass is one of the most powerful noble houses and one of the oldest, but it is part of the minority. Croe and Anko hold power and opposition. Anko especially. My father is what they call a liberal. He has… lofty ideals and is a generous and honest man. But he is also guileless, vulnerable. A crafty political agent could use his honesty and betray him. It has happened before.”

“Lady Chass, I have no designs on your father’s position. He summoned me here. I have no idea what he wants. I am a warmaker, a leader of soldiers. I’d rather cut off my right arm than get involved in house politics.”

She thought about this. “Promise me, Gaunt. Promise me you won’t use him. Lord Anko would love to see my noble house and its illustrious lineage overthrown.”

He studied her face. She was serious about this — guileless, to use her own word.

“I’m no intriguer. Leave that to Kowle. Simple, honest promises are something I can do. They are what soldiers live by. So I promise you, lady.”

“Swear it!”

“I swear it on the life of the beloved Emperor and the light of the Ray of Hope.”

She swallowed, looked away, and then said, “Come with me.”

With her bodyguards trailing at a respectful distance, she led Gaunt out of the anteroom, along a hallway where soft, gauzy draperies billowed in a cool breeze and out onto a terrace.

The terrace projected from the outer wall of the Main Spine and was covered by a dedicated refractor shield. They were about a kilometre up. Below, the vast sprawl of Vervunhive spread out to the distant bulk of the Curtain Wall. Above them rose the peak of the Spine, glossed in ice, overarched by the huge bowl of the crackling Shield.

The terrace was an ornamental cybernetic garden. Mechanical leaf-forms grew and sprouted in the ordered beds, and bionic vines self-replicated in zigzag patterns of branches to form a dwarf orchard. Metal bees and delicate paper-winged butterflies whirred through the silvery stems and iron branches. Oil-ripe fruit, black like sloes, swung from blossom-joints on the swaying mechanical-tree limbs.

Lord Heymlik Chass, dressed in a gardener’s robes, slight marks of oil-sap on his cuffs and apron, moved down the rows of artificial plants, dead-heading brass-petalled flowerheads with a pair of laser secateurs and pruning back the sprays of aluminium roses.

He looked up as his daughter led the commissar over.

“I was hoping you would come,” Lord Chass said.

“I was delayed by events,” Gaunt said.

“Of course.” Chass nodded and gazed out at the south Curtain for a moment. “A bad night. Your men… survived?”

“Most of them. War is war.”

“I was informed of your actions at Hass West. Vervunhive owes you already, commissar.”

Gaunt shrugged. He looked around the metal garden.