After forty hours, Lowink was confident he had overheard astropathic traffic exchanges indicating a fleet departure, shortly followed by a tremor in the fabric of the fathomless immaterium. But still we waited. Waited for the one thing that I would take as convincing.
Just after the turn of the sixty-sixth hour, it came. An astropathic signal in Glossia: 'Nunc dimittis.'
We lofted from the darkness of Obol into the starlight. Everyone on the ship, myself included, I freely admit, was suddenly talking too loud and too much as we moved around, basking in the bright cabin lights and the restored heating systems. The silent, cold wait had been like a penance.
The Essene, slow and majestic, moved in to meet us. Once the heretic fleet had left the system, Maxilla had emerged from hiding in the star's corona and sent his signal.
As soon as we were docked, I went straight to the bridge where Maxilla greeted me like a brother.
'Are we all alive?' he asked.
'In one piece, though it was close/
'I'm sorry I had to desert you, but you saw the size of that battlegroup/
I nodded. 'I'm hoping you can tell me where it went/
'Naturally/ he replied. His astronavigators had not been idle. The chief of them emerged from their annexe at the side of the domed bridge and hummed across the red-black marble of the floor to join us. Like all of his crew, it was essentially mechanical. Its organic, human component – my guess was no more than a brain and some key organs – supported both physically and biologically in a polished silver servitor sculpted in the form of a griffin, its draconian neck swept back so its beaked visage stared down at us. It floated on anti-grav plates built into its eagle wings.
It paused before us, and projected a holographic chart from its open beak. The star map was complex, and incomprehensible to the unschooled eye, but I made out some detail.
The navigators have analysed the warp-wake of the departing fleet and made a number of algorithmic computations. The heretics are moving out of the Helican sub-sector, out of Imperial space itself, into the forbidden stellar territories of a breed I believe are known as the saruthi/
'I had guessed as much. But that in itself is a considerable area, more than a dozen systems. We need specifics/
'Here/ said Maxilla, indicating a point on the shimmering three dimensional chart with one gloved hand. The charts have it as KCX-1288. Under optimal conditions, it's thirty weeks away from here/
And what is the margin for error on this calculation?'
'No greater than point zero six. The warp-wake of the fleet was quite considerable. They may of course break the journey and re-route, but we will be watching for changes in their wake/
'Of course/ he added, 'They will presume us to be following. Even if they think you're dead, they'll know you had to have had a starship that brought you here. One they couldn't find/
The thought had crossed my mind too. Glaw and his conspirators must at least now be expecting pursuit, or expecting someone to inform on their whereabouts and destination. They would now be trusting on vigilance, their considerable massed firepower, and their headstart.
I already had Lowink busy preparing an emergency communique to send back to Gudrun and Inquisition command.
4Vhat do you know of the saruthi and their territory?'
'Nothing/ he said. 'I've never travelled there/
I thought this a curiously brief answer for a man so usually talkative.
'So/ he said at length, 'apart from our knowledge of where they're going, have we any other advantages?'
'We have/1 took from my coat pocket the item that had rested there ever since I had liberated it from Glaw's travelling trunk in North Qualm. Maxilla regarded it with frank perplexity.
'This/ I told him, 'is the Pontius/
* * *
We used a large, empty hold in the depths of the Essene. Some of Maxilla's servitors arranged lighting and powerfeeds. My own servitors – Modo and Nilquit – carried the claw-footed casket in and set in on the cold steel floor.
I stood watching, my hands buried deep in my overcoat pockets against the cold of the chamber. Aemos hunched over the casket and, with Nilquit's aid, began to connect cables. I looked over at Bequin. She stood next to Fischig, and was bundled up in a heavy red gown with a grey shawl, and there was an expression of grim reluctance on her face. She'd found it all fun at first, a game, even in the face of danger at House Glaw. But Damask had changed things for her. The monster Mandragore. She knew it wasn't a game anymore. She'd seen things that many – perhaps even most – citizens of the Imperium never see. Most lives are spent on safe worlds far from the touch of war and horror, and the obscenities that lurk out there in the darkest parts of the void are myths or rumours… if that.
