It does no justice at all to the monster it describes.
I have known hellholes and death-planets that from space look serene and wondrous: the watercolours of their atmospheres, the glittering moons and belts they wear like bangles and jewels, the natural wonders that belie the dangers they contain.
Thracian Primaris is no such dissembler. From space, it glowers like an oozing, cataracted eye. It is corpulent, swollen, sheened in grey veils of atmospheric soot through which the billion billion lights of the city hives glimmer like rotting stars. It glares balefully at all ships that approach.
And, oh! But they approach! Shoals of ships, flocks of them, countless craft, drawn to this bloated cesspit by the lure of its vast industrial wealth and mercantile vigour.
It has no moons, no natural moons anyway. Five Ramilies-class star-forts hang above its atmosphere, their crenellated towers and buttressed gun-stations guarding the approaches to and from the capital world. A dedicated guild of forty thousand skilled pilots exists simply to guide traffic in and out of the jostling, crowded high-anchor reaches. It has a
planetary defence force, a standing army of eight million men. It has a population of twenty-two billion, plus another billion temporary residents and visitors. Seven-tenths of its surface are now covered by hive structures, including great sections of the world's original oceans. City-sprawl fdls and covers the seas, and the waters roll in darkness far beneath.
I loathe the place. I loathe the lightless streets, the noise, the press of bodies. I loathe the stink of its re-circulated air. I loathe its airborne grease-filth adhering to my clothes and skin.
But fate and duty bring me back there, time and again.
The encrypted Inquisitorial missive had been quite clear: I, and a great number of my peers, was summoned to Thracian Primaris to attend the Holy Novena, and wait upon the pleasure of the Lord Grandmaster Inquisitor Ubertino Orsini. Orsini was the most senior officer of the Inquisition in the entire Helican sub-sector, a status that made him equal in rank and power to any cardinal palatine.
I was not about to decline.
The voyage from Lethe Eleven took a month, and I brought my entire entourage back with me. We arrived just four days shy of the start of the Novena. As a tiny pilot boat led my ship in to anchor through the massed ranks of orbiting starships, I saw the dark formations of Battlefleet Scarus, suckling at a starfort as if they were its young. This was their heroic homecoming. There was a taste of victory in the air. An Imperial triumph on this scale was something to be savoured, something the Ministorum could use to boost the morale of the common citizenry.
Tour itinerary has been prepared/ said Alain von Baigg, a junior interrogator who served as my secretary. We were aboard the gun-cutter, dropping towards the planet.
'Oh, by whom?'
He paused. Von Baigg was a diffident and lustreless young man who I doubted would ever make the rank of inquisitor. I'd accepted him to my staff in the hope that service alongside Ravenor might inspire him. It had not.
'I would have presumed that the preparation of my itinerary might have included my own choices.'
Von Baigg stammered something. I took the data-slate he was holding. The list of appointments was not his handiwork, I saw. It was an official document, processed by the Ministoram's nunciature in collaboration with the Office of the Inquisition. My timetable for all nine days of the Holy Novena was filled with audiences, acts of worship, feasts, presentation ceremonies, unveilings and Ministorum rites. All nine days, plus the days before and after.
I was here, damn it! I had responded to the summons. I would not allow myself to be subjected to this round of junkets too. I took a stylus and
quickly marked the events I was prepared to attend: the formal rites, the Inquisitorial audience, the Grand Bestowment. "That's it/ I said, tossing it back to him. The rest I'm skipping.' Von Baigg looked uncomfortable. 'You are expected at the Post-Apostolic Conclave immediately on arrival.' 'Immediately on arrival/ I told him sternly, I'm going home.'
