The remaining fleet elements straggled to regain control and handle the wanton destruction.
The Lord High Militant, I learned, had a fit of rage so extreme he had to be sedated by his private physician.
That doesn't just happen,' Betancore said. We sat in my private room, by the tall windows, looking out across the city. Ghost-flares of energy and explosion, one trailing down in the sky like a falling star, marked the night.
'Imperial battlefleets are among the most ordered and disciplined organisations in space. Confusion like that doesn't just happen/
'Like deserters don't just get a hold of a ship and uniforms and know the name of the man whose ship they chance to board, you mean? Our unseen foe is making his influence felt. Voke talked about a parent cult, overseeing many small cells and cabals. He reckoned the Glaws were the masters of this conspiracy. I'm not so sure. There could be a yet higher authority at work/
Urisel Glaw was held in the Imperial Basilica. He had undergone hours of intense interrogation and torture since his capture. And he had given up nothing.
I went to him that night. Voke and his interrogators were still at work, now with a sense of urgency.
They held him in what could only be described as a dungeon, ninety metres below the massive grey stone fortress. All the other prisoners taken during the raid on House Glaw were sequestered here too. In order to contain and interrogate them all, Voke had co-opted local Arbites, soldiers of the Gudran standing army, and officials of the Ministorium. They worked in concert with his own extensive staff.
Arriving by air launch, I was met by a tall, grey-haired man in a long maroon coat attended by two armed servitors. I knew him at once. Inquisitor Titus Endor and I were of similar ages and had both studied under Hapshant.
You are recovered, Gregor?' he asked, shaking my hand.
Well enough to continue my work. I didn't expect to see you here, Titus/
Yoke's reports on the Glaw case have concerned our order's sub-sector officio. Lord Inquisitor Rorken has declared the need for a full disclosure. Voke's inability to get anything out of Urisel Glaw has annoyed him. I've been diverted to assist. And not just me. Schongard is here too, and Moli-tor is on his way/
I sighed. Endor, a fellow Amalathian, I could work with, though there is a proverb about too many inquisitors. Schongard was a rabid monodom-inant, and a liability in my view, and Konrad Molitor was the sort of radical I felt had no place in the order at all.
This is unusual/1 said.
'It's all down to connections/ Endor remarked. 'What has come to light through your work here, and Voke's, is a massive puzzle that itself
connects dozens of separate cases and investigations. I burned a heretic on Mariam two weeks ago, and in his effects found documents linking him to the Glaws. Schongard is pursuing blasphemous texts that he is certain first came into the sub-sector in the cargoes of Guild Sinesias traders. Molitor… well, who knows what he's doing, but it no doubt connects.'
'Sometimes/ I told him, 'I think we work against each other. This comes out and, look! We all hold pieces to the same mystery. How might we have taken this enemy and his structure apart a month ago, two months, if we had exchanged information?'
Endor laughed. 'Are you questioning the working practices of the most lauded Inquisition, Gregor? Working practices laid down centuries ago? Are you questioning the motives of fellow members of our convocation?'
I knew he was joking, but my manner remained serious. 'I'm decrying a system where we don't even trust each other.'
We descended, under escort, into the depths of the prison block.
"What of Glaw?'
'Gives up nothing,' said Endor. 'What he's endured so far would have broken and cracked most men, or at least had them begging for death or trying to kill themselves. He persists, almost in good humour, almost arrogant, as if he expects to live.'
'He's right. We'll never sign his death notice while he has secrets.'
Voke's men were at work on Glaw in a foul-smelling, red-painted cell. Glaw was a ruin, kept alive by expertise that matched the skill used to torture him.